¡escriba! ¡write! - Hostos Social Network

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1 HOSTOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE ¡ESCRIBA! ¡WRITE!
A BI-LINGUAL JOURNAL OF STUDENT ART AND WRITING
¡ESCRIBA! ¡WRITE!
VOLUME 8, JUNE 2010
VOLUME 8, JUNE 2010
EUGENIO MARÍA DE HOSTOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE
THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
¡ESCRIBA! ¡WRITE!
VOLUME 8, JUNE 2010
COPYRIGHT © 2010 BY THE AUTHORS
EDITED BY:
Miriam Laskin
Jennifer Tang
DESIGNED BY:
Carl James Grindley
PUBLISHED BY:
Library Department
Hostos Community College
The City University of New York
475 Grand Concourse
The Bronx, Ny 10451
A CAT’S MEOW PRODUCTION
COVER: Xiomara Gonzalez. “Enlightenment.” 2010.
BACK COVER: Elizabeth Milliner. “Courage and Strength.” 2010.
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1 Table of Contents
Miriam Laskin and Jennifer Tang
Carlos E. Cuevas
Arturo Reyes
Marlene Velazquez
Anthonia Nwaigwe
Stephanie Lopez
Adriana Monedero
Quodus Lawal
Craig Bernardini
Shanynce Richardson
Joselia Hughes
Dale Francis
Miriam Laskin
Damaris Vega
Stephanie Lopez
Christelle Dejolie Makouteu
Michelle Henriquez
Marbin Profeta
Assayid Roaches
In Seon Kim
Melbanys Reyes
Adrian Morillo
Quodus Lawal
Reinaldo Velez
Olga Steinberg
Jean Andre Piquant
Tawana Felton
George Mareku
Nadia Ramaniuk
Rudolf Mbadinga
Rudolf Mbadinga
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Introduction An Army of One
A New Life
My Power
Greed The Insanity Defense
The Children’s Hour
Modernity
The English Speaking Union
The English Speaking Union
The English Speaking Union The English Speaking Union
The Big Read
August Afternoon
Chac-Mool
Tell Them Not to Kill Me
Tell Them Not to Kill Me
My Life with the Wave
Women’s History Month Women’s History Month Women’s History Month Marketing of Food Abolishing Nutritionism
How Water Came to Be
The Energy Saving Project
Earth Day Copenhagen The Model Senate
The Model UN
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1 Artwork
Alexander Morfogen
Hideki Takahashi
Elizabeth Milliner
Crisne Lebron
Javier Arellano
Karen Katrina Garcia
Ana Avagyan
Hae Young Hwang
Nelly Garabito
Samantha Hernandez
Edberg Silva Yesenia Moises
Andrew Torres
Jose Martinez
Elijah Richmond
Edward Arias
Serrano Christina
Andre Steinberg
Bianca Colon
Shin Seungeob
Mavel Soto
Jose Martinez
Kenny Baez
Christine Cortez
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London Boy
Portrait
Portrait
Grandfather and Grandmother
Guitar Hero
Fight Diabetes
Self Portrait
Siblings
Psychotic Cat
Tree of Knowledge
Building as Seen Through Criss-Crossed Glass
Boy on Rainbow Bridge
BAD Sign
Obama (yes we can)
Carnival of Bullets
Sitting on the Top of the World
Thoughts
Scream
Self Portrait
Tiger
Potatoes with Eyes
My Life with the Wave
Tires
Untitled
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VOLUME 8
1 Professors Miriam Laskin and Jennifer Tang
Introduction
Welcome to our eighth issue of ¡Escriba!/Write!. As always, we hope that
any Hostos student who has writing or art and would like to share it with others
in this publication, will contact the Escriba staff or go to our web page (accessible from the Hostos Library homepage under “Quick Links”) for instructions
on submitting your material. A quick IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:
we are moving the publication date of ¡Escriba!/Write! It will no longer be published in June. Instead, we will now publish it in December and that means
we need your manuscripts or artwork as soon as possible. So do not hesitate to
contact us and send us your poems, essays, novels-in-progress, personal narratives, short stories, etc. We also publish art and digital art and photography, as
you will see in this issue and the art is absolutely indispensible to the success
of Escriba!.
This year we have fewer poets but more excellent essays and two vivid personal narratives – Carlos Cuevas’ snapshot of a dangerous day in his Iraq tour
of duty; and Arturo Reyes’ amusing but bittersweet description of leaving his
home in the Bronx to live in Philadelphia. Also new in this issue of ¡Escriba! are
some of the fruits of Hostos’ participation this year in The Big Read. Thanks to
Prof. Kathleen Kane, we have included several of her students’ reviews of their
favorite short stories from Sun, Stone and Shadows (ed. Jorge F. Hernandez), a
collection of Mexican short stories that was The Big Read selection.
We also happily include the winners of our annual Women’s History
Month and English Speaking Union essay contests. Many thanks to Hostos
faculty for their generosity and help in connecting us with students whose
work we include here, and those who had winning essays. For the essay contest winners, we thank Professors Jerilyn Fisher, Elyse Zucker, Susan Dicker,
Andrew Hubner for the Women’s History Month winners; and Professors
Craig Bernardini and Andrew Hubner for the English Speaking Union winners. Big thanks also to Jason Libfeld, Hostos Student Leadership Coordinator, for supplying photographs of this year’s Albany Model Senate and Model
United Nations, and for helping us to connect with Rudolf Mbadinga who was
a participant, along with other Hostos Student Leadership members, in these
activities and who wrote about his experience.
Once again, we are excited about the participation of faculty and students
from the Natural Sciences department in our student journal. This year, with
the help of Professors Nelson Núñez-Rodríguez, Flor Henderson, and Olga
Steinberg Neifach we have some important contributions that showcase the
kinds of projects and research our students undertake in science courses. One
of our more unique contributions is a monologue that was created from a
chemistry assignment about the water molecule (you must read it to believe
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it!), and several very timely essays about global warming, the Copenhagen Climate Treaty Summit and personal testimonies of how we can save energy (and
money!) at home. Although they were not written for a natural science course,
we also offer two essays about how food products can be unhealthy and why.
As we readily admit, our award-winning student journal would not be as
great as it is if it did not include the creative artwork of our Hostos students.
Whether it’s through digital photography, illustration or painting, our students
have created imaginative and thought-provoking artwork that reveals their inner worlds. From expressing a deep love for family in Hae Young Hwang’s
“Siblings” to commenting on a serious health problem in “Fight Diabetes” by
Karen Katrina Garcia, our students imbue their works with intelligence, humor and social commentary. Inspired by the technology of digital design and
photography, they also revealed how they’d change reality, from Yesenia Moses’
“Boy on Rainbow Bridge” to a fiery reimagining of President Obama in Jose
Martinez’s work, “Yes We Can.” Less we forget how powerful black and white
photography can be, Elizabeth Milliner captures a young man’s fearlessness
through a masterly grasp of composition, lighting and perspective in “Strength
and Courage.” Many thanks to Professors Ian Scott and Rees Shad for helping
our Hostos students bring out their inner genius so that they can share their
brilliance with the world.
“London Boy” by Alexander Morfogen
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1 CARLOS E. CUEVAS
AN ARMY OF ONE
The temperature was close to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, just like it had been
during the last couple of days. It was another day in Iraq and another day closer
to go back home. I was on my second deployment and was hoping it was to
be my last one.
“Guys, today we are going through Fallujah, destination unknown,” said
the convoy commander in her high-pitched voice. I wasn’t concerned about
the unknown destination, since unknown had been our destination most of
the time. What concerned me was the route through Fallujah, a city located
west of Baghdad, on the Euphrates river. It was 2004 and Fallujah had extremely high rates of violence. Just a few days ago I was watching on the news
the marines’ operation to gain control of the city. As a result of this operation,
some marines and soldiers lost their lives. I was wondering how many times
I shared my table at the mess hall with those that had been killed. Would I
become another body at the morgue? Or would I be able to go back to my unit
in one piece and finally be reunited with my family back home?
It was a relatively calm morning. Troops were coming back to the Baghdad
International Airport after their night shift at the city as I was rolling out to
the unknown destination. I must have slept well, since not one helicopter woke
me up that night. It was common to get woken up by the noise of Black Hawk
and Apache helicopters flying in and out of the airport at just a few feet above
my head. There were times I thought that if I were to raise my arms I would be
able to touch “those birds.”
I made myself comfortable in my truck. To be comfortable means to strip
down to your shirt without any armor and to loosen up your boots. It was
supposed to be just a two day ride, a relatively short trip when compared to
the others that consisted of four to seven days. I felt safe in Baghdad, so there
wasn’t the need for a fully armored uniform. After all, the city wasn’t like it was
unjustly pictured on the news. Most Iraqis were friendly and cooperated with
us. Language was a barrier, but they understood us. They said thank you and
threw kisses at us as we drove by. I never saw this friendly side of the Iraqis
portrayed on the news.
My heart was beating faster and faster as we were approaching Fallujah.
The fact that I was approaching Fallujah was terrifying. Fallujah wasn’t known
within my unit as a “friendly” zone. I was not in Baghdad anymore. I started
to put on my full armor again. Then a sign of relief came over the radio. “We
are not going through Fallujah.” The “Hooahs” an Army way to express joy,
bombarded the radio as soldiers expressed their relief. “Amens” also got on the
radio’s waves from those that received the message as an answer to their prayers.
I lowered my guard.
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A few miles into our journey we arrived at one of the towns located along
the route. The people in the town were friendly, just as in other towns. They
were waving and yelling “Ameriqui! Ameriqui!” They warmly welcomed us
into the area. Even though we were welcome in their town, there was an unusual atmosphere in the area. Most people were only on one side of the street,
and there were few children out. I decided to put on my full armor gear. I am
glad I did it!
When I thought we were leaving town, a place that one can never trust
regarding how safe you feel, a thunder-like sound echoed through the area.
Suddenly a black cloud of smoke covered the area. My visibility was at a minimum, and I decided to drive through the dense black smoke. After I cleared
the smoke cloud I brought my truck to a complete stop. Right next to me was
a disabled truck hit by an improvised explosive device (IED). These explosives
were handmade by unfriendly Iraqi citizens. They were simple in the making,
but very destructive. The occupants of the disabled truck were already out of
it. They jumped into my truck as I continue the march. They were lucky to be
alive and safely in my truck. That IED had only destroyed a truck and shattered
my windshield. Then came the sound of another IED behind me, this time
with a deadly result. I never saw those comrades again.
I am grateful to live to recount this story. I was able to save the lives of two
of my fellow soldiers. They knew I had their backs and I knew they had mine.
We were after all an Army of One.
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VOLUME 8
1 ARTURO REYES
A NEW LIFE
For the better part of my life I’ve lived in the Bronx ‘til circumstances
beyond my control landed me in “The City of Brotherly Love,” Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania in November of 1992. The drive there was an exhilarating experience for me at the young age of 12 years. I remember it as an adventure, a
journey to a new life. My uncle at the wheel, my little brother Carlos and I saw
things along the highway we had never seen before.
We drove into a rest stop and there was a convenience store called Wa-Wa
and the picture of a goose-like mascot on the awning sign. They sold items I’d
never seen before. For example, there were these cold drinks called slurpys. I
was curious, so my uncle bought me a medium-sized blueberry slurpy. It was
very sweet and turned my whole mouth blue. Not something that was sold
in the Bronx. “What’s it like where we’re going to live, Tio,” I asked while my
brother was occupied drinking his slurpy he bought himself at that weird store.
“Not like N.Y. Pilon, quiet and peaceful and lots of white people,” he said.
You see, growing up in the Bronx during the 1980s, I really never came
across that many white people. The only rare instances were two teachers during grade school and at the doctor’s office. I was thinking about it the whole
ride there. Are they nice or mean, and just how different were they from us?
These were just some of the things I was thinking about.
Finally we arrived. The houses looked pretty small and attached to each
other. “Why are the houses together Tio?” I asked. He told me they were called
row houses.. I was confused because I had never seen anything like it before. I
was used to living in a building in a small apartment. I assumed everyone lived
just like I did.
While my uncle was driving down the street to our new home, my brother and I looked out the sides of the window and saw kids playing down the
street. Indeed, they were white, just like my uncle had mentioned. At that
moment I had butterflies in my stomach because they were different from the
kids I normally would hang-out with. All of my old friends were either African
American, Dominican, Puerto Rican, or Mexican minorities and that’s all I
ever knew.
There was this one particular kid riding on a skateboard with broken
pieces of wood and funky stickers all over his board. He pointed at me and
shouted, “Hey! Where do you come from.” I got very nervous at that point,
so I lowered myself down the seat to not get anyone’s attention. I took a peek
at my new home, and saw three steps heading up towards a porch. A wind
chime made from seashells caught my attention for a moment before I saw a
big brown wooden door. There were carvings of roses as the design. It was a
spectacular door, something I’ve only seen in movies. My parents’ apartment
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door in the Bronx was just a big metal slab, nothing interesting about it except
the fact it probably had been painted over thirty times or more.
I walked inside along with my brother to greet my aunt Anna. I went
upstairs to unpack my belongings when my brother and I were escorted to our
new room. “We get our own room?” I asked my Aunt. “Where did you think
you were going to sleep,” she said. Living in an already overcrowded one bedroom apartment with five people was what I was used to. It’s surprising to me
that my brother and I get to at least share our own bedroom.
I looked out the window and saw kids standing in front of my new home.
Since this was my first big move to an unfamiliar place and not being at all
familiar with my new surroundings left me with fear. I thought those kids
congregating outside would hate me for being different from them. I stayed
indoors for about two weeks before I got the courage to step outside. School
was out for Christmas vacation at the time and registering for school was a long
process as well, so I had time on my hand.
“Pilon,” my Aunt yelled. I came down from my room and asked what was
the matter. “I need you to go to the store and buy me a gallon of milk and a loaf
of bread,” she said. “I’ll get lost, I don’t know how to get around yet,” I said.
“Well, you need to know youre way around because you start school soon,” she
said. So I took the ten dollar bill that she gave me to purchase the items. “The
store is two blocks up to your right and one block more to the right,” she said.
Off I went with my oversized coat. I walked two blocks up to the right just
like my Aunt said. “Where you going?” I heard a voice from the left side of me
and there he was, sitting on the steps. “My name is Brian. What’s yours?” he
said. I couldn’t figure out what to say. Do I say my name is Arturo or my nickname Pilon. I just couldn’t stand the fact that I was about to embarrass myself
to someone named Brian. I was used to names like Jose, Tito, or Gustavo. This
I thought was the most important moment of my life because a name is very
powerful. Kids can be honest and very cruel at the same time, so teasing is very
easy if your name sounds funny. I thought of Junior the very last part of my
name and simply said, “My name is Junior.” Brian just looked at me and said,
“Cool, want to play hockey?” Okay, I said, not knowing what hockey was. I
hurried back home from the store with a big smile on my face and shouted to
everyone, “my name is Junior, call me Junior.” “Que pasa con el?”-what’s wrong
with him,” my aunt said.
I went back outside and met up with my new friend Brian and he loaned
me a hockey stick. He also introduced me to the rest of his friends. There was
Stanley, Kevin, Joey-Madelyn, John, Crystal, Claude, and Desiree. At that moment I finally realized what it meant to be an outsider. My family and I were
the only Puerto Ricans in the neighborhood, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought
it would be.
“So what’s your name?” Crystal asked. Crystal was a charismatic Irish
American girl with a distinctive mole on the left side of her cheek. “Junior,” I
said. “What’s your real name?” she said. How did she know that Junior wasn’t
my real name? Maybe she’s psychic I thought. I was tensing up, sweating, very
nervous at the fact that I was going to have to say my real name in front of
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them all. Then, I just yelled it out “Arturo,” I said defiantly. They were never
going to speak to me again I thought to myself. “That’s cool, it’s unique,” she
said. “I like it but it’s kind of difficult to pronounce. I’ll call you Junior then,”
she said.
The misconceptions about white people led me to believe the most awful
things about them towards us. Yet I was accepted by them. Even though I was
not one of them; they sure made me feel like I was.
“Portrait” by Hideki Takahashi
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1 MARLENE VELAZQUEZ
MY POWER
It is true that I was once led by hand through life.
Given all the reasons I should do this or do that
By someone else.
Told how I should live by people older and wiser than myself
But not anymore, because the power has been snatched by me.
I took the power to speak for myself from the individuals in my life
“What a great power!”
There is so much I can do with it.
Should I abuse or should I appreciate?
Would it be abuse if I were to tell a story?
A story some know and others do not.
So many things to do
And so many things to say
And it begins with my heart
With every beat within
And with my heart this power will grow
‘cause I will speak and do all with what’s best for me
No one and no one alone will tell me this time
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1 ANTHONIA NWAIGWE
GREED
Where there is a need
There is always greed.
A rotten exploiting deed
That manifests with speed.
When there are mouths to feed
Read between the lines and take heed!
Sneaking around is inspiring greed
Ready to take advantage and proceed
Even when there is no need to succeed
It is agreed, there is always greed.
Our desire for more always exceeds our needs.
We always want more
Sometimes I don’t know what for
I read to understand what generation of breed
Has given birth to this senseless weed
Because life is a circle of endless greed
I urgently need to know
I plead, who planted this
Seed of greed
To deliberately mislead?
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1 STEPHANIE LOPEZ
THE INSANITY DEFENSE
The insanity defense is a plea that defendants are not guilty because they
lack the mental capacity to realize that they committed a crime. On the contrary, in the short stories “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” and “Berenice,” Edgar Allan Poe defends the unreliable narrators by claiming that they
are not insane. He uses a persuasive tone to make the reader believe that the
character’s actions are not only correct, but normal for a person with his intelligence. He puts the blame on people, animals, and even inanimate objects to
defend his state of mind.
“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a story about how an innocent old man is gruesomely murdered. The narrator is obviously crazy, but he tries to persuade the
reader to think that the old man’s evil eye is driving him to kill him. He tries to
mask his craziness with intellect:
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But
you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded--with
what caution--with what foresight--with what dissimulation I went to work!”
(40). “Ha!--would a madman have been so wise as this (41)?
He is contrasting himself to a crazy person, explaining how someone who
is insane could have never completed this task so meticulously. His persuasive
tone brings in the reader as if they were simply having a conversation with a
friend. “Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in!” (41)
He is assuming the reader would think that this is not only sane, but
funny. Nonetheless, Poe is persuading the reader to be on his side in believing
that the narrator is not mad. “If still you think me mad, you will think so no
longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the
body.” (43). The narrator finds any little detail to blame such as the evil eye,
his intellect and even his senses before admitting that he is insane. “And now
have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness
of the senses?” (42). The narrator even goes on to blame the heart’s beating for
him getting caught, when in fact we all know a dead man’s heart cannot beat.
“The Black Cat” is a short story about how the narrator kills his pet cat,
then later on tries to kill a second cat that reminds him of the previous cat but
in doing so, he mistakenly kills his wife. He begins by telling the reader he does
not expect to be believed:
For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I
neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case
where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not (para 1).
Even the narrator doesn’t believe what he is about to say. He already states
that he is not crazy. As in “The Tell-Tale Heart, this narrator finds something
to blame:
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Perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one
of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the
character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing
a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should
not?” (para 9).
He knew what he had done was morally wrong, but still went along and
did it. He sees a silhouette of a cat in his burned house on the wall of his bedroom but it could not have been there because he had hung the cat from a tree.
The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house.
Upon the alarm of the fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the
crowd - by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and
thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been
done with the view of arousing me from sleep” ( para 12).
Although it’s clear that his mind is playing tricks on him and maybe even
his conscience or guilt, he would rather believe any feasible story before thinking he might be losing it.
“Berenice” is yet another story about murder. The narrator Egaeus is once
again mad. He kills his cousin Berenice because of her teeth. He explains that
the normal reader would not understand him, once again using his intellect to
defend himself:
It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that
it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader,
an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case,
the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.
( para 6)
Once again this narrator’s mind is playing games with him and he is blaming her teeth for his horrid actions. “The teeth! - The teeth! - They were here,
and there, and everywhere” (para 17) Obviously the teeth were not everywhere
but his acute senses focus so deeply on an object that he can’t control himself.
Subsequently, this one object drives him to murder yet again.
My secondary source is Edgar Poe: Seer and Craftsman by Stuart Levine.
In the section about madness and credibility, Levine explains how Poe has
a certain style that was tied to the nineteenth century, when writers had a
fascination with death. Levine goes on to say how the narrators are mad and
unreliable. This passage ties in perfectly with my argument on how the narrators are insane and trying to convince the reader otherwise. I agree with Levine
and he furthers my claim of madness: “The narrator is mad, a monomaniac
capable of losing himself, due to an extreme heightening of the attentive powers of his mind, in morbid contemplation of the most minute items” (26-27).
Levine points out that Poe tends to blame his madness on inanimate objects,
persuading the reader to believe he isn’t mad but that an object drove him to an
obscene act. Writes Levine of a fellow literary critic, “Clark Griffith has defined
the situation of such Poe characters as ‘the inner madness,’ which enables the
characters to perceive ‘the outer wonders’” (27). A monomaniac is a person
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who is obsessed with a single thing, to the exclusion of other concerns. This
pretty much sums up the narrators in all three stories.
In conclusion, Poe’s narrators are unreliable first person points of view.
These characters are usually crazy. Poe has a persuasive tone to prove to the
reader they are not insane but these are words coming from someone who is
unreliable to begin with. Others such as Levine also believe that his characters are monomaniacs who are engulfed by one object and go crazy over these
things, whether it is a cat or eyes or teeth.
Works Cited
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart,” in Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana
Gioia. 2nd ed. New York: Longman,2008: 39
Giordano, Robert. http://www.Poestories.com. “The Black Cat” and “Berenice” 27 June 2005. Web. 23 Mar. 2010.
Levine, Stuart. Edgar Poe: Seer and Craftsman. New York: Everett Edwards,
1973.
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1 ADRIANA MONEDERO
THE CHILDREN’S HOUR - TWO MOVIES, ONE PLAY
Homosexuality is accepted more and more in society nowadays. Homosexuals show their affection in public and although it might be still uncomfortable for some people, society in general respects and accepts them. However,
this is something relatively new in our society. In the 1930s homosexuality was
considered to be a mental illness. Homosexuals were prosecuted and many
laws were passed against them. It was a forbidden theme in society and all art
expressions. The film industry, for example, had to follow rules and codes in
order to show its movies in theaters. Movies are a good source for seeing how
the theme of homosexuality has changed over the time. Two interesting movies based on the play The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman show a clear
change in societal attitudes towards homosexuality over time. The two movies
are “These Three” (1936) starring Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Joel McCrea, and Bonita Granville, and “The Children’s Hour” (1961) starring Audrey
Hepburn, Shirley McLaine, James Garner, and Karen Balkin. Although both
are based on the same play, they each address the plot in different ways.
“These Three,” starring Miriam Hopkins, who plays Martha Dobie, and
Merle Oberon, who plays Karen Wright, starts when these two friends are
graduating from college. Their future seems to be uncertain since they don’t
have any money. However, Karen, who has inherited a farmhouse from her
grandmother, decides to try to open a school for girls with her friend’s help.
Once they move in to the farmhouse, they meet Dr. Joe (Joel McCrea) who
encourages them to follow their plan despite the bad conditions of the farmhouse. Martha looks interested in Joe from the beginning, while Joe is clearly
interested in Karen. The plan works out and the school is opened. Mrs. Tilford,
a prestigious woman, supports the school and sends her granddaughter, Mary,
to study there. However, Mary doesn’t like going to school, and she is always
causing trouble. Therefore, she is always punished. As revenge, Mary schemes
a heterosexual triangle between the two teachers and Dr. Joe. She tells all her
stories to her grandmother, who believes everything, and uses her power to destroy the school and the teachers’ reputations. However, the end of this movie
is a happy ending. Rosalie, another student who knows the truth, helps Martha
to clarify everything. Martha leaves with her aunt, and Karen goes looking for
Joe. The end shows them together, as a happy loving couple.
Hellman wrote a lot of additional scenes for this film, leaving out the
theme of lesbianism which is in the original play. The reason is that this production was under the rules of The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930
(Hays Code). One of the general principles of this code states that “No picture
shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it.
Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of
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crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.” Movies, as any piece of art, were considered to
have moral obligations so the code made it clear that “everything possible in a
play is not possible in a film” because movies are seen by larger audiences and
the impact can psychologically affect their lives (The Motion Picture Code).
Lesbianism, then, was considered impure love and immoral.
“These Three” differs from the play The Children’s Hour in many aspects.
It adds the graduation of the teachers from college, emphasizing more on their
friendship. It also adds more scenes to the process of Joe and Karen falling in
love. Many scenes are outside the school, while in the play most of it takes place
at the school. Some of the added scenes are the day Karen meets Mrs. Tilford
on the road; the day Joe and Karen go to the carrousel; and the trial. The end
keeps the plays dialogues, but it switches the speakers’ roles. Karen seems to
have doubts about Joe and Martha, instead of Joe having doubts about Martha
and Karen. Martha confesses her love for Joe, while in the play her confession
is being in love with Karen. The final confrontation that takes place between
Martha and Mrs. Tilford in the movie is a confrontation between Karen and
Mrs. Tilford in the original play. Finally, in this movie Martha leaves with her
aunt, while in the play she commits suicide.
The Children’s Hour, filmed in 1961 on the other hand, is more faithful
to the original play, including its name. Not many scenes were added to the
film that were not in the play, and the lesbianism theme is implied although it i
never mentioned explicitly. When the movie starts, Karen and Joe have already
been engaged for two years, and they are planning to get married. The school is
functioning and Mary, a spoiled girl and the granddaughter of Amelia Tilford,
goes to the school. Mary is caught in a lie, and Karen punishes her. Furious,
Mary plans her revenge by inventing a story about Martha and Karen having
a homosexual relationship. The story is part product of her imagination which
is fed by a book she is reading, and fragments of a conversation her roommates
heard between Martha and Mrs. Mortar. In this conversation, Mrs. Mortar
tells Martha that she is jealous of Joe, and that she has “unnatural” feelings for
her friend Karen. Mrs. Tilford believes everything her granddaughter says, and
the rumor is rapidly spread. All girls are taken out of the school by their parents, and the teacher’s reputation is destroyed. Joe starts doubting about Karen
who thinks it is better to end their engagement, so Joe leaves. Once Martha
knows about the break up, she confesses that she feels confused, and that she
loves Karen in a different way. When the truth is discovered, and Mrs. Tilford
realizes that everything was a fabrication of her granddaughter, she apologizes,
but Karen refuses to accept the apology. Karen proposes to Martha that they
leave together to start their lives somewhere else. However, this doesn’t happen
since Martha commits suicide.
The Children’s Hour movie definitely follows the play. However, some
scenes are also added to the movie. One of those scenes is when Mrs. Tilford
goes to the school to confront the teachers, immediately after Mary had told
her the lie about Karen and Martha. Another important scene added is Martha’s funeral, when Karen is shown alone while other people watch her from
the distance.
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Although both movies are different, the actors and actresses in each one
really play their roles close to the original play. I believe that in both movies,
Mary is the most wonderful character. Bonita Granville, in “These Three”,
and Karen Balkin, in “The Children’s Hour,” perfectly manage Mary’s complex
character. Both actresses are able to awake in the audience repulsion for this
evil character. Their body language and facial expressions transfer the personality of Mary from the play in a way that viewers want to spank them. I personally like Karen Balkin’s interpretation better than the other one. I think she is
more expressive, and characterized better how spoiled Mary is. In my opinion,
Mrs. Mortar is better interpreted by Catherine Doucet in “These Three.” She
creates a superficial and egocentric woman better. Her tone of voice is more
annoying, and she speaks faster.
The performances of Martha in the films are difficult to evaluate in terms
of fulfilling expectations based on the play. In “The Children’s Hour,” Shirley
McLaine is obviously closer to the original character of Martha. She is able to
convey that special affection for her friend without letting the audience see her
real feelings, which she doesn’t know either. One of her best moments in the
movie is when she confesses to Karen that she has found out that she really
loves her as everybody says.
Karen Wright’s character is well interpreted by the two actresses. Merle
Oberon, in “These Three,” and Audrey Hepburn, in “The Children’s Hour,”
play Karen from the play. They both transfer to the audience Karen’s sweetness
and determination. However, as with Martha’s character, it is easier to relate
Karen with Audrey Hepburn’s interpretation because that movie is closer to the
original play. Audrey Hepburn is so sweet that her characterization contrasts
better Martha’s personality which is not as feminine.
Besides the characterization made by actors and actresses, specific film
techniques are used to enhance the emotions or feelings that the scene wants to
reflect. In “These Three,” there is a key scene that shows the distance between
Martha and Joe. A long shot technique is used first to show the whole scenario.
Dr. Cardin falls asleep while waiting for Karen in company of Martha, who
is sitting in another chair. A close up of Dr. Cardin is followed by a shot of
the window. After the window, there is a close up shot of Martha looking at
Joe. This technique seems to say that Joe doesn’t have any interest in Martha,
while making clear that Martha is in love with him. The movie also uses the
technique of fading out between scenes.
“The Children’s Hour” movie runs continuously. There is a film technique
that is used many times in this movie as well as in the first version. It consists
of dialogue between characters where the audience can see but not hear what
the characters are saying; the mood of these shots implies that something important and negative is being said. This is used when Mary whispers into her
grandmother’s ears. In this scene, the music and the facial expressions imply
that Mary is saying something horrible about Karen and Martha, to her grandmother. Another scene that uses this technique is when one of the parents is
explaining to Karen the reason the girls are being taken out by their parents.
The audience can clearly see that they are having a conversation but the shot
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of the conversation is in the distance. The purpose of this technique is to avoid
the word lesbian (Erhart 93). This might be also the reason to omit the trial.
Showing the court would have made it necessary to the accusation of lesbianism. There are a lot of close ups of Mary, since the actress is very skillful with
her facial expressions. An important close up occurs when she is spying on the
teachers. When Karen kisses Martha, the kiss is shot from Mary’s point of view
(subjective shot). After that there is a close up of Mary’s face (98). This close up
makes the audience infer that Mary is fabricating a story in her mind. It adds
more drama to the scene.
The movies are also full of symbolism. One example is the flowers Mary
gets for Mrs. Mortar from the garbage. Mary getting the flowers from the
garbage is more than disrespectful. It also implies the point of view about Mrs.
Mortar, not only from Mary, but the author. Mrs. Mortar is a materialistic,
egocentric and superficial woman. Her character is only there to aggravate the
situation. It is like flowers taken from the garbage is all she really deserves.
Something else in the movie that illustrates symbolism is the fact that Dr. Cardin is a pediatrician. His profession emphasizes the traditional family values
such as getting married and having kids, a situation that is of course impossible in a homosexual relationship. Another situation that can have a symbolic
meaning is Mary’s fake heart attack. The heart is supposed to be the organ
where people’s feelings are. It may signify then, Mary’s necessity for affection
and attention.
The two movies, although based on the same play, failed to focus on what
was the real intention of the author of the play. In a New York Times article of
December 14, 1952 by Harry Gilroy, he writes some reflections on what Miss
Hellman has said about her play: “I never see the characters as monstrously as
the audiences do . . . this is really not a play about lesbianism, but about a lie.
The bigger the lie the better, always (Hellman 4) ” In this reflection, Hellman
reveals her real intention when writing the play, and the main focus. However,
none of the two movie’s versions are concentrated in this matter.
“These Three” is turned into a typical Hollywood love story with a happy
ending. The reasons were previously discussed. However, the main focus of this
movie is on the love triangle between the two teachers and the Dr. The negative
impact of Mary’s lie is offset by the happy ending. Mrs. Tilford gets the opportunity to do something so she can feel better. She gives Karen the message
that everything was a fabrication of her granddaughter.
“The Children’s Hour” movie also focuses more on the lesbianism theme.
Although it is not explicit, the curiosity to know what is really happening between Martha and Karen is what keeps the spectator connected to the movie.
Two important scenes added to this movie are a key to see how the director
wanted to address the supposedly lesbian relationship between the headmistresses. One is when Mrs. Tilford goes to the school to confront Martha and
Karen, but instead she finds Mrs. Mortar very upset because her niece had
just thrown her out. Mrs. Mortar’s words about Martha caring only about the
school and her friend, confirms the story Mary had told her grandmother. The
other scene is more a change in the sequence of the original play’s ending, than
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an addition. In the original play, when Mrs. Tilford goes to apologize after
finding out the truth, Martha has already committed suicide. In the movie,
Martha is able to hear Mrs. Tilford apologize, and then commits suicide. The
play judges Mrs. Tilford harder, because she is not given any opportunity before Martha’s death. In contrast, the movie gives Mrs. Tilford more comfort
since at least she gets to the school and both of the teachers are able to listen
to her apology. Then, the sequence in the movie emphasizes more in the guiltiness Martha feels because of her “impure feelings”, and because although everything started as a lie, it had become a truth for her. The movie is definitely
more about homosexuality, than the power of a lie.
I think the movies were well made, independent of the fidelity to the play.
“These Three” is a sweet love story that catches the audience’s attention, and
has what most people would expect from a love story, a happy ending. “The
Children’s Hour” is also interesting. It touches in a veiled way, a theme that
even in the 1960s was taboo. The scenes were made in a way that homosexuality is implied, but never mentioned.
Watching the two movies, and reading the play is a really interesting way
to see how the film industry adjusted a story within a gap of 25 years. In the
1936 version, lesbianism was completely banned, which caused a switch of the
plot. In the 1961 version, although never mentioned, the homosexual relationship was implied. In addition, both movies show how much damage a lie can
cause and both have a moral. The movies might be old, but they both caught
the audience’s attention and touched on themes that are still controversial.
Moreover, although homosexuality is the main point in “The Children’s Hour,”
it is magisterially managed since not a single obscene scene is shown. That
might be a challenge for a moviemaker nowadays.
Works Cited
Erhart, Julia. “She Could Hardly Invent Them! From Epistemological Uncertainty to Discursive Production: Lesbianism in The Children’s Hour.”
Camera Obscura. (1996): 86-105. Web.
Hellman, Lillian. The Children’s Hour. New York: Dramatists Play Service,
1981. Print.
“The Children’s Hour.” Dir. William Wyler. Perf. Audrey Hepburn, Shirley
MacLaine, JamesGarner, and Karen Balkin. United Artists, 1961. Film.
The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code). Artsreformation.
com. Web. 1 May 2010.
“These Three”. Dir. William Wyler. Perf. Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Joel
McCrea, and Bonita Granville United Artists, 1936. Film.
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1 QUODUS LAWAL
MODERNITY: A SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
Introduction
“Modernity was in its first instance, a system of notions: progress, cosmopolitanism, abundance, and an inexhaustible desire for novelty” (Rotker,
3) promising unfathomable freedom and greatness that can make men become, like Marti said, “kings of kings”. It is a word that promised scientific,
technological, political and social transformations. In other words, modernity,
according to Susan Rotker “meant the perception of the beginning of industrialization and the consolidation of stronger bureaucratic states…” (Rotker,
1). Since industrialization emanated generally from Western civilization, it has
more of a Western influence to its interpretation and motives. Therefore, to be
modern in Western terms meant having faith in technology: an environment
of railroads, steam engines, factories, telephones, telegraphs, daily newspapers
and most importantly new scientific discoveries.
However, the enormity of modernity is not limited to science and technology; it had a great influence on literature, most importantly Latin American
literature. It introduced a term called Modernism which according to Susan
Rotker “is a conjunction of literary forms that explains the different ways in
which it was incorporated into modernity” (Rotker, 1). It can be said to be a
socio-cultural concept which was indeed generated to counter the bourgeois
industrial civilization of the nineteenth century. This tiny thread of rearranged
words is what attaches Latin America to Western Modernity while repulsing its
exploitative influence.
During the nineteenth century, science and literature played an important
role in all ramifications of life. This gave modernity a gateway into politics and
economics. The political influence of modernity is one of its most horrendous
yet important determinants of human relations in times to come. This change
in political relations brought by modernity had a great effect on Cuba and
Puerto Rico that are still under the bond of colonization and imperialism.
Since Cuba and Puerto Rico were under the Spanish hegemony, there was
intense efforts to integrate them into the hemispheric international economic
system. This effort was countered by “Modernismo.” This literary movement
was led by Nicaraguan Ruben Dario and it set a standard for new poetry (Allen, xvii). According to Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria in his article, Jose Marti:
An Introduction, “modernity was the product of the rationalist forces that,
through their effect in science and industry, made social life materialistic and
crass, particularly in the growing cities of Europe, the United States and increasingly Latin America.” Modernism, on the other hand, is using “spiritual
and artistic elitism to reject the modernist ideology. This critical perspective
of modernism against bourgeois values was deeply rooted in the modernistas’
belief in the transformative capability of art and this gave Modernismo, particularly Marti’s works, a political edge.
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Marti’s View on Modernity
Marti’s exposure to economic, political and technological modernity obviously transpired during his stay in New York from 1880 to 1895 when he left
Cuba to lead the Cuban insurrection against Spain but he would never return
to Cuba. Marti’s stay in New York was definitely a memorable experience.
They were no doubt, the most productive years of his life. However, what gave
Marti’s stay in New York an element of historic quality is not limited to his
political activism and revolutionary ideologies, but spans through his observations, quintessentially documented in his writings. He wrote on topics ranging
from his view of the United States, in Impressions of America (by a very fresh
Spaniard), to a more critical and cynical view in The Truth about the United
States.
One of the topics Marti talked about along with modernity is Nature.
Marti’s ideas about nature and modernity were immensely influenced by one of
the 19th century writers, Ralph Waldo Emerson. According to Oscar Montero
in his book, Bilingual Emerson, “in Emerson’s writings, Marti discovered an
echo in his own faith in the transformative powers of human creativity and
solidarity” (Montero, 109). Although in the 1800s, global warming was not
an issue that was discussed, otherwise Marti would have written about it, but
now it has turned out to be one of the greatest damage humans has ever done
to the planet and it is an example of the effect of the “transformative powers
of human creativity and solidarity” However, Marti dreaded the defeat of love
due to greed, poetry smothered by commerce and materialistic thoughts. The
greatest of his fears was the consequences of these struggles for the soul of a
nation on Cuba, Puerto Rico and Latin America as a whole (Montero, 111).
In one of his letters, Our America, Marti elaborated the qualities of a ‘natural’ man and strongly advocated for the sovereignty of the Cuba and Puerto
Rico. He believed strongly in his ideas that he said, “a cloud of ideas is a thing
no armored prow can smash through” (Allen, 288). He started this letter by
seeking for ‘unity’ of Latin American countries, in which absence made them
“nation of fluttering leaves…” He referred to a “Seven-league giant”, which I
believe is the Western Civilization or Western exploitation of Modernity, and
the urgency of forming ‘ranks’ to block its entry in ‘our America.’
Afterwards, Marti enthusiastically talked about the need for valor amongst
the peoples of Latin American countries. Courage, he explained, is deeply rooted in taking pride in what you have. He said valor does not exist in the hearts
of “sons of carpenters who are ashamed that their father was a carpenter” nor
those “who are ashamed of the mother that raised them because she wears
an Indian apron” (Allen, 289). There after, he linked these moral values to
government, the most crucial topic he talked about in the letter. Marti’s idea
of ‘the’ government is one that is “born from the country” it governs. He said
“the government is no more than an equilibrium among the country’s natural
elements (Allen, 290).” In other words, “the spirit of the government must be
the spirit of the country”. The use of the article ‘the’ before ‘government’ and
‘country’ emphasized the sole identity of an administration that is completely
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not be imported from another country; which is the main reason for Marti’s
opposition against annexation.
Despite some of the Western manipulations of modernity, Marti saw and
wrote about numerous marvels of modernity in New York. However, he wrote
an essay that accumulates the totality of modernity and its influence on humans, what John Kasson called, a “symbol of a new cultural order.” “At Coney
Island,” like Oscar Montero said, “Marti faced modernity.” He saw the possible
future existence of humans. He saw “the greatest show on earth.” (Montero,
21)
By the time Coney Island was built, it was the first of its kind. It provided
limitless pleasure for the working class. Its colossal appearance is breathtaking.
Like Marti said in his essay about Coney Island, it exhibited the “marvelous
prosperity of the United States” (Allen 86). Marti used lots of metaphors and
similes to bring the beauty of Coney Island to life through his words. His heart
stopped at the size of the crowds that jam-packed the place every summer day.
The continuous energetic movement and activities of the people made him
quiver in joyful excitement. Like Oscar Montero says in his book, Jose Marti:
An Introduction, Marti was “alone in the crowd.” This gave him the sanity to
gaze at the landscape, observe the movement of masses and see beyond the
happy persona that everyone had on, and the curiosity of his imagination was
awakened. Being an incredibly talented and prolific writer, exposed to a world
of diversity and advancement which is entirely different from what he used to
know or see, Marti’s imagination compelled him to write what he saw, felt and
foresaw.
Seeing these things, Marti realized the detachment of the people. This
“crushing expansion” is making people lose the communal connection they
have. The very evident detachment he observed was the lack of maternal connection between mother and child. The sight of a woman walking along the
beach freely, leaving the child with a babysitter was one that Marti could
not bring himself to understand. Being a modernista, Marti also discovered
the spiritual estrangement that immigrants, especially Latin Americans, go
through. He realized, being an immigrant himself, the feeling of acute loneliness and alienation and he was apparently dismayed.
Marti also noticed a slippery slope down to the valley of materialistic
thoughts and actions. He realized the sublime sadness and dejection overshadowed by the materialistic instinct of the ‘modern’ people. What broke Marti’s
heart the most was the racial and class discrimination which was very evident
in the entirety of the United States. No doubt, like Montero said, “Marti admired the pragmatic spirit and ingenuity of the United States. He revered [her]
democratic traditions;” however “he immediately recognized the seductive
power of mass culture, already in full swing at Coney Island.” The hierarchical
ideology of satisfying the ‘upper class’ citizens and hypocritically ignoring the
‘lower class’ immigrants really appalled Marti, and Montero called it the most
devastating ‘social vice.’
According to Marti “poverty is not merely lack of fortune but deprivation in the midst of plenty, hunger and abjection disguised in a carnival of
plenty (Montero, 24)” And this was exactly what Marti saw about modernity
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in Coney Island. The dreadful exploitation of the working people; the deprivation and alienation of immigrants; and the lack of care and affection for the
children of the deprived, were all that Marti saw, feared and spent the majority
of his life trying to solve.
Marti’s interest in science, its accomplishments, its far reaching technology and the transformations it would bring about was uncontroversial. Therefore, for Marti, it was not opposing modernity, but rather to be watchful about
the uses to which it was put. That is why he said in his letter, Our America:
The natural man is good, and esteems and rewards a superior intelligence
as long as that intelligence does not use his submission against him or offend
him by ignoring him – for that the natural man deems unforgivable, and he is
prepared to use force to regain the respect of anyone who wounds his sensibilities or harms his interests.
Advantages of Modernity
This evolving social transformation that has been exploited and flawed by
Western materialistic civilization, promised a great deal of positive advances in
its early years. It gave man the freedom to determine his future without gazing
into a space of uncertainty. It was a period of drastic transition in lifestyle and
it was especially a good period for journalism and literature, due to the fact that
there was intense curiosity amongst the people. And with the help of newspapers and telegraphs, information is disseminated from place to place. Tobacco
workers would hire a reader to read to them the news around the world, or the
most recent work of literature. Like Bernardo Vega, said in his memoirs, the
tobacco workers would listen attentively and have a debate on the subject of
discussion after the reader is done.
Also there was a wide range of subjects to write about; from politics to
science, and social life to literature. Industrialization was in its glorious youth;
scientific discoveries were finding their way into hearts of men. Women were
realizing their importance in the capitalist and materialistic economy. Cuba
and Puerto Rico were seeking their independence from exploitative colonial
masters. These years were years of new creation and a period of great intellectual movement. The word ‘scientist’ did not exist until 1833, until uttered
by William Whewell, due to the expansive exploration of science. With the
1800s, came the Theory of Evolution and natural selection, published by
Charles Darwin in 1859, along with Michael Faraday’s electricity and electromagnetism and Gregory Mendel’s theory of Gene Selection and Independent
Assortment. While these transformations were happening in science, the likes
of Karl Marx, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Jose Marti himself, amongst others,
were revolutionizing the world of literature.
One thing that everyone during the 1800s universally admired about modernity was technology. The luxury of travelling in steam boats, affected people
just like men landing on the moon during the 1960s. Feelings of omnipotence
dominated the crowd and the zeal of creating new things inspired the imagination of scientists. The City of Paris, a steamer referred to as the “epitome of
modern transportation” exhibiting, like Montero said “two supreme values of
modernity: speed and comfort” was the fastest steamer at the time. “Five days
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nineteen hours and eighteen minutes” was all it took this steamer to move from
Queenstown, Ireland to Hudson Bay, New York (approximately five thousand
miles) at a time when basic transportation was canoes, carriages and horses!
However, as the role of science and technology became definitive in society, there were gradual detachments of the social sciences like sociology,
philosophy and psychology. Hostos realized this detachment and its possible
repercussion in future global relations. He was able to see, at a time where sciences were embryonic and relatively virtual conceptions, the connection of all
sciences and the importance of their integration in learning. He talked about
the five universal procedures imperative to the execution of all sciences and
emphasized that these similarities are enough to connect sciences (Sainz, 138).
Disadvantages of Modernity
The technological advancements during the post-traditional periods have
altered numerous sequences of life. Humans deviated completely from the ‘traditional’ ways of doing things. The role of religion was substituted with scientific laws and theories; the general knowledge of creationism was replaced with
the theory of evolution. Parents would rather make their child learn chemistry, physics, philosophy, and political relations than listen to sermons. These
gradually disintegrate the sense of communal relationships. Not only was the
communal attachments disengaged, the disparity between ‘races’ became more
obvious. Only the privileged majority could attend such schools, while the
children on the penniless immigrants stayed home. As a result of this, the
executive posts were held by certain group of race while another was classified
as another man’s job. In The Chinese Funeral, Marti talked about the Chinese
men that own restaurants and do laundry “because that is what they [were]
allowed to do.” It is astounding to realize that today in New York, it is still so.
Also, with modernity, comes capitalism which is a vehicle driven by the
fuel of profit making. It opened the window of chance for the big firms and organizations to trample upon the immature firms. Therefore the countries with
capitalist ‘power’ tended to exploit the countries deprived of a capitalist market. This was one of the greatest problems for Cuba and Puerto Rico. Under
the Spanish rule, yet dreading the annexation to the United States, these two
countries were stuck in the ugly frenzy of the exploitative power of capitalism.
Knowing the strategic location of Cuba, the United States offered the Spanish
Government a sum of $100 million to possess Cuba in 1848 (Allen, xxvii),
but their proposal would not be approved. This is an aspect of modernity that
makes one country a prey and the other a predator is what Carlos. J. Alonso
called ‘uneven modernity.’ It is an insufficiency of modernity that makes it
a dreadful ideology especially in Spanish American countries. This created a
disparity between Spanish American modernity and the Western modernity of
the United States. The Pan-American Congress, which was intended to find a
hemispheric unity amongst the countries of the Americas, was a blatant failure
due to this fact. The materialistic instinct of the United States was brought to
light and the delegates departed the ‘juggernaut’ before it got to its final harbor
(Montero).
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However, the overwhelming hands of modernity that has encroached into
religion, which used to be the strongest foundation of a Country, led to moral
decadence. It erased the moral instinct and replaced it with a feeling of ‘gods.’
Marti really saw this in Coney Island and feared the absorption of the mass
culture into the future generations which we live in. At the time, Coney Island
was referred to as the ‘Sodom of the sea,’ a place for sexual perversion and all
sorts of ‘social vices.’ Marti referred to Coney Island as a ‘valve of pleasure’ and
realized the difficulty to place the valve back on the lid of a pressure cooker.
This immoral mass of people desert their children who Marti said ‘look like
broken lilies pulled out from the mud’. Marti realized the children’s beauty is
being corrupted by the lack of attention.
As said earlier in this essay, Marti admired the freedom of the masses; however, when the freedom is not evenly distributed, it becomes a major problem.
It thickens the line of separation and increases the abyss of disparity between
the rich and the poor. Marti said that without a common good (community),
freedom turns into the fleeing satisfaction of selfish pleasures (Montero, 34).
Solutions to the Western Influence on Modernity
Modernity has its own share of flaws and beauty however; its poignant
flaws have invaded the human relationship for more than a century. Marti saw
these flaws, the materialistic thinking of people, the exploitative use of freedom, he knew that Cuban independence will not only heal the hemisphere of
this exploitative Western influence, but in the long run have a global benefit.
“He suggested that Latin difference will be the antidote” (Montero) to the
‘poisonous culture’ modernity was turning into due to this Western influence.
His ideology of freedom and citizenship is not based on a stoic coincidence
rather a complete participation in the civil activity of where they claim their
freedom and citizenship. I believe Oscar Montero will agree with me when he
said “Marti felt that citizenship meant not only guarantee of individual rights
but a shared sense of civility” (Montero, 34).
Although Marti anticipated the independence of Puerto Rico while he
supported the independence of all the Antilles, he believed that the best way
to break from any shackle, either of modernity or of any exploitative ideology,
is getting to understand such philosophy. Marti was a tremendous advocate
for education and he believed that an educated community is strong enough
to confront any obstacle that it faces. No wonder he said “teach the people to
reason” (Faith Ringgold). However Hostos found it most important to educate
women, especially scientifically. His explanation was that scientifically inclined
teachers surpass their contemporaries. Since it is a known fact that mothers are
the first teachers a child has an encounter with, they should be scientifically
educated.
Conclusion
The world we live in today is immensely influenced by modernity. Although, it is no longer a term that is widely used to depict technological ad-
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vancement and expansion, it has molded our lives in various facets of social
interactions. All of Marti’s fears about modernity are quite evident among us
today. In a recent journal article written by Bill Moyers, I was surprised to learn
that based on a documentary on the BBC network, the top 200 wealthiest
people in the world control more wealth than the bottom 4 billion. A recent
study found that the top .01% or 14,000 American families hold 22.2% of the
wealth, while the bottom 90% - or over 133 million families – hold just 4% of
the nation’s wealth, as of June 2008 (Moyers, par. 1). This is how colossally the
disparity between the rich and the poor has evidently increased over the years.
Now we have “Third World Countries” that the “advanced” countries claim to
lend a helping hand.
However this modernity that brought in technology and science has made
it possible for man to step on the moon, fly like birds; build a ship three times
as big as the Titanic. The sick children Marti saw can now be cured of their
cholera. The trip from Ireland to the United States that took almost six day
will now just take seven hours, thirty minutes. But that brings us back to what
Marti said: that poverty is wallowing in lack among abundance, because the
benefits of ‘modernity’ are not universally distributed.
Works Cited
Alonso, J. Carlos. The Burden of Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press,
1998.
---. The Spanish American Regional Novel. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1990.
Borda De Sainz, Jo Ann Marie. Eugenio María De Hostos: His Philosophy. Ann
Harbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1977.
Fountain, Anne. Jose Marti and U.S. Writers. Miami FL: University Press of
Florida, 2003.
Jose Marti. Selected Writing. translated by Allen, Esther. London: Penguin
Classics, 2002.
Montero, Oscar. Jose Marti: An Introduction. New York, New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2004.
Moyers, Bill. “Steve Frasier on Gilded Ages.” Bill Moyers Journal. 13 June 2008.
Web. 20 November 2008.
Ramos, Julio. Divergent Modernities: Culture and Politics I Nineteenth-Century
Latin America. Translated by Blanco, D. John. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke
University Press, 2001.
Rotker, Susan. The American Chronicles of Jose Marti: Journalism and Modernity
in Spanish America. Hanover, NH: University Press of England, 2000.
Vega, Bernardo. Memoirs of Bernardo Vega: A Contribution to the History of the
Puerto Rican Community in New York. New York, New York. Monthly
Review Press, [no date].
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1 PROFESSOR CRAIG BERNARDINI
English Speaking Union Essay Contest
The English Speaking Union is an organization that promotes “international understanding and friendship through the use of the English language.”
The New York chapter has been sponsoring essay contests at Hostos for more
than 25 years. This year, essay contestants were asked to write on one of two
topics: to describe someone the writer knows who “marches to a different
drummer,” or to discuss a quote by Thomas Jefferson: “When a man assumes a
public trust, he should consider himself public property” and agree or disagree.
Prof. Craig Bernardini oversees the contest and he has generously provided
Escriba with the three winning essays. Enjoy.
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1 SHANYCE RICHARDSON, FIRST Place
MARCH TO THE BEAT OF A DIFFERENCE DRUMMER
In this vast world of drum beats, piano keys, and guitar strums, it is no
easy task to decide which beat is right for one to march to. There is no limit
to the amount of expectations society imposes upon its inhabitants, or the
obstacles one must defeat to achieve success. But despite such adversity, there
are always people who find a way. And if there’s no way to be found, there are
always those brazen few who create a way. One such person I’ve had the pleasure of meeting was my 8th grade Humanities teacher, Askia.
I met Askia in the fall of 2003. He was a short man, maybe an inch taller
than the tallest boy in the class. He was of Japanese and African-American
descent, a peculiar sight for our ignorant 8th grade eyes. But upon getting to
know him, we soon felt the familiarity in his soul. He exuded an energy unlike
any from any other teacher I’d encountered. He taught with passion and fervor
in his voice. When we students spoke, he listened intently and responded as
if what we said, meager 8th graders, many below the expected literacy levels,
mattered. He strayed from the normal Eurocentric lesson plans and delved
deeper into the history of those who looked like us, fought for us. He made us
hungry for the history necessary to take pride in our lives. When questioned
about the lack of Latinos in our history lessons by a curious student, he returned the following Monday with a lesson on Fidel Castro and the Cuban
Revolution. That was just the kind of teacher he was.
Although he was a phenomenal teacher, that was not the only thing that
made Askia the inspiring and amazing person he was. He was born to a Japanese mother, who was born in the midst of World War II, inside of a Japanese
concentration camp. After his mother relocated to California’s Bay Area, Askia
was born into intense poverty. His father was absent from his life, never to resurface until Askia was a grown man, well into his thirties. Growing up in the
ghettos of Oakland, a predominately black city, Askia was often teased about
his Japanese eyes and fair skin. He laughed as he would tell me those stories,
but I often sensed the hurt that lived in his laughter, wrinkled and nagging. By
the 10th grade, Askia was failing out of school and had impregnated his girlfriend. He dropped out soon after. But it was with shining pride in his eyes that
he would tell me about getting his GED and eventually his masters degree. By
the time I met him, he was working on a Ph.D in Environmental Psychology.
Despite the odds, Askia attained success. And it was because of the odds,
that he wanted his students to attain success too. I admire Askia because he
made his purpose in life to inspire others and provide them the tools of achievement. He didn’t only march to the beat of his own drummer, he marched to
the lively sounds of his own parade, inviting onlookers to accompany him
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down the Fifth Avenue that is life. I dropped out of high school and got my
GED, and I strongly believe it is with the help of these fond memories that
I’m able to write this essay at Hostos today. These memories are what dreams
are made of.
“Portrait” by Elizabeth Milliner
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1 JOSELIA HUGHES, SECOND Place
PUBLIC PROPERTY
“When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself public property.” Thomas Jefferson
We may or may not be cognitively aware of this truth, but truth is the
foundation upon which most significant human interaction rests. It is, quite
plainly, the bedrock of knowledge, the cement which rightly binds the sometimes tenuous bonds between us. Still, perhaps, that is not enough when one
assumes trust in another, and in this case we should say a person of public authority, one then falls liable to the nature of the person who has been entrusted.
Further, when one decides to become a public authority, to become essentially
a play-thing of the people, he or she is left completely vulnerable to the tumultuousness of personal morals and virtues that may be in direct conflict with the
public which he or she serves. The concepts of trust, ethical autonomy and the
accepted norms that accompany roles which are inherently prestigious will be
examined critically.
We must properly evaluate the role of trust with regard to the social role
of public figures. It may be an overly obvious statement but public officials
have attained such status because they are considered to be the best individuals to work for the interest of the general public. America’s system of government promotes representation of its citizens. In theory, (and of course these
assumptions teeter on being overly optimistic) by using everyday people as
representatives for the masses, we as a nation have assembled a hierarchical
contrast based upon conflict. We have assembled this construct and in turn
cannot fight against our own beliefs, lest we appear hypocritical. Obviously
this certainly does not hold true, but still, like starved children grasping for our
mother’s breast, we cling to the ideal. Further, we as a nation have the almost
silly proclivity to hold our public officials to this ridiculous gold standard we
often won’t even use as a standard for ourselves. Public officials are expected to
be our beacons of legislative and moral hope. They are expected to have superhuman abilities, to mimic the gracefulness of God, to never falter, to never err,
to never fall victim to being human. Nietzche coined a wonderfully descriptive
word, :übermensch,” a person of capabilities which are difficult to obtain and
almost divinely virtuous in nature. This serves as an important way to describe
the expectations of our public figures. The general public finds it hard not to
be completely emotionally invested in the figures they elect. The public also
finds it hard to achieve the balance between emotional distance and clear logical functioning. Thus, the public figure is constantly placed in a position where
he or she must laughably pirouette between public wants and personal needs.
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But why must one, who has taken the duty to represent the people still
hold steadfastly to the desire of personal needs? The answer is so painfully
clear. Every man, woman and child will at some point desire privacy and space
(whether it is emotion or proximinal). We can muse that this need for space is
a simple reaction to overstimulation of the senses and sensibilities. We can say,
also, that the space may be needed to act out wants and desires that may not be
well received by peers. There are certainly more explanations but for the sake
of the argument let us grapple with these two. A public representative, beneath
the sharp suits and the overly styled hair, beneath the rhetoric and punditry,
beneath the sly smile and questionably white teeth, is a human like the rest of
us. Being that he or she is a painfully simple human, he or she should be allotted the same rights as any other person in this nation.
With the needs of the public official established, let us look into the delicate dance between fulfilling those needs, the public wants and the ethical
quagmire that arises. Essentially, the problem that shifts forth is a problem
based upon self interest. For the public, their self interest regarding public officials not only rests upon the legislative power the authority figure wields but
also in the morality of the public figure backing the particular legislation. For
example, a citizen may have an issue with a congressman who is adamantly
against gay rights but the same congressman frequents gay bars and has homosexual relationships. In this example, the citizen would feel it is his or her right
to peer into the life of this congressperson, to make sure the proverbial bark is
matching the bite. Then the citizen would reevaluate their thrust in the particular congressperson. All of this would break down the initial trust placed upon
the congressperson by the citizen which may break down the societal trust.
For the public official, though, their self interest is based upon not only
personal needs (whether the needs are morally acceptable or not) by directly
addressing the supporting public wants. The public official must then enact
an ever-changing façade. In the morning there may be a face for the family, in
the afternoon a face for a press conference, in the evening a drunken face that
attempts to efface the creations of the day. And all of this is based upon, even
forced by, constant public scrutiny. Personally, all of the face-changing would
create a massive ethical dilemma. How can a public official ever be trusted if
the public is only seeing a façade upon a self? How did the public even properly
choose their representative if their reason for trust and faith were based upon a
fiction? Oh, but the official does not get off unpunished. How could the public
official allow themselves be put in a position of constant public scrutiny and
perpetual face changing? It seems as if both parties are wrong; it seems that
both parties involved have fallen victim to each other.
Let us conclude not with idealistic, overly presumptuous rhetoric, but
with simple, sage advice. As children, our parents often warn us: “do to others what you want others to do to you.” For such little ears and inexperienced
beings, that was monumental advice; perhaps, on par with something otherworldly. Yes, we are grown up now. And, yes, we have moved far beyond parables and warning. But take heed to the childhood lessons lost to summers; take
heed to the advice of under-praised parents. As a nation, as a people we must
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look beyond our self interest and rationally gauge our judgments and assumptions. We must look toward our sisters and our wives, our husbands and public
representatives with caring glances. We all are human, nothing more. No title
or power changes the one truth - our humanity - we can confidently we know.
Each human desires to be treated exceptionally, despite differing opinions, and
certainly we must all work together to uphold that desire.
“Grandfather and Grandmother” by Crisne Lebron
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1 DALE FRANCIS, THIRD Place
TISHY, DANCING TO A DIFFERENT DRUMMER
My family is made up of very intelligent and strong African-American
people with some liberal, but mostly conservative, middle-class values. However, there is one person who personifies the meaning of being an individual
who marches to the beat of a different drummer. She is the “standout in the
crowd,” the “lone wolf,” and some might say (and come to think of it, do say) a
weirdo. My mother’s baby sister, Patricia Lucille Hall, is a vegan, interpretative
African dancer who in her spare time travels the world and studies Yuruban
culture and astrology. She lives with her lover Pamela and they jointly teach a
yoga class using heavy African beats and drums in Brooklyn. Tishy (that’s her
family nickname) is just her own authentic self, inside and out, and I just adore
her for having the courage to live that way.She lives out loud.
Tishy was brought up by my grandparents, in the same household as
my mother and other two aunts, but she was different from the beginning of
her life. My grandparents gave their daughter piano lessons and taught them
classical pieces, as well as encouraged their innate love for opera, but Tishy
rebelled. She would skip her piano lessons and go to the neighborhood recreation center. There she would dance to this music that was becoming more
and more popular with young Black people discovering their heritage. It was
African tribal music with rich and soul-stirring rhythms that were too exciting
for Tishy to ignore. She finally told her parents what she was doing, and they
weren’t exactly jumping for joy at the news. My grandfather blamed her “craziness” on my grandmother’s side of the family, and my grandmother reminded
him of his “odd-ball relatives,” but in the end, they accepted their youngest
daughter’s uniqueness and gave her their blessing to pursue dance.
Tishy proved to be a gifted dancer. She went to the High School of Performing Arts and starred in many dance productions. She went on to college,
where she met and eventually married her Black Studies professor. He exposed
her to even more aspects of African and African-American culture than she
could even imagine. They had a daughter, named Nairobi, and traveled extensively throughout Africa and Europe. The whole time they were globe-hopping,
my aunt was gleaning all sorts of knowledge from people she encountered and
befriended. She was a “New Ager” before that phrase was even coined; she
studied with and became a Yuruban priestess and developed spiritual dances.
She became a sponge to all aspects and offerings that life could present her. She
lived life out loud.
She faced a very difficult time in her life when she realized that her marriage wasn’t happy or fulfilling to her or her husband. They loved each other,
but not enough to go on through life as partners. Tishy had been holding in a
secret, but at age 40, she came out to the family. Suppressing her sexuality was
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causing her pain, and she couldn’t do it anymore. She divorced her husband,
and after a few years, she met and fell in love with my aunt, Pam. (They aren’t
legally married, but Pam is part of our family.) My mother totally accepts Pam
and calls her “one of the sisters,” and my sons love her to death. (They think
she’s the coolest percussionist around.) I just love how happy Tishy is when
she’s around Pam. She helps Tishy live out loud.
I have a special bond with my aunt, Tishy, that my father used to laugh
about. He would say that I had inherited my “weird, artsy-fartsy” ways from
her. I guess I did because I was raised by my grandparents for the first five years
of my life (mom and dad were trying to finish college), and Tishy lived with my
grandparents and me at that time. She would dance and teach me scaled-down
versions of her routines, so I grew up loving ballet, interpretative dance and African praise dancing. I treasure the fact that among my immediate family, I am
considered the “odd” one. No matter. I do things a bit differently. I can draw
up birth charts based on astrology; I can cook food from many cultures; I am
a liberal Catholic who believes in spiritual cleansing. I lived with my husband
for seventeen years before I believed marriage was right for us. I believe we can
communicate with our family members when they pass over. I know that the
average person may not share my views on most subjects (don’t get me started
on politics), but I am not afraid to put my authentic self out there and express
my opinions. I know that’s partly due to my aunt Tishy. I gotta love her and I
do .She taught me to live out loud.
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“Guitar Hero” by Javier Arellano
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“Fight Diabetes” by Karen Katrina Garcia
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“Self Portrait” by Ana Avagyan
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“Siblings” by Hae Young Hwang
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“Psychotic Cat” by Nelly Garabito
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“Tree of Knowledge” by Samantha Hernandez
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“Building as Seen Through Criss-Crossed Glass” by Edberg Silva
“Boy on Rainbow Bridge” by Yesenia Moises
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“BAD Sign” by Andrew Torres
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“Obama (yes we can)” by Jose Martinez
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“Carnival of Bullets” by Elijah Richmond
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“Sitting on the Top of the World” by Edward Arias
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“Thoughts” by Serrano Christina
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“Scream” by Andre Steinberg
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“Self Portrait” by Bianca Colon
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“Tiger” by Shin Seungeob
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1 PROFESSOR MIRIAM LASKIN
INTRODUCTION TO THE BIG READ
This year, the Bronx Council on the Arts invited the Hostos Library to
take part in The Big Read, a literacy program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. We called on faculty from the entire college to think of
ways they could use Sun, Stone and Shadows (ed. Jorge F. Hernandez), a collection of Mexican short stories, in their classes. Hostos art and digital arts students created works based on the stories and acting students put on a dramatic
reading. Several English classes read, discussed and wrote about the stories.
Prof. Kathleen Kane’s students did reviews of their favorite stories in the collection. We have included five of these reviews. We thank Prof. Kane and her
Eng. 111 students for their contributions and we hope that they will inspire
others to read the stories.
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1 DAMARIS VEGA
“AUGUST AFTERNOON” BY JOSE EMILIO PACHECO
“August Afternoon” is very short, sweet and straight to the point. It is
about a fourteen-year-old boy whose father died soon after he was born and
whose mom works very hard to support them. He has a big imagination and
loves war stories, often picturing himself as a Mexican soldier. He spends most
of his time over at his uncle’s house and adores being around his cousin Julia.
They listen to music, she helps him with his homework, and she also takes him
to the movies, but things start to change when she introduces her boyfriend
to him. He starts to become possessive and wants to be Julia’s hero, just like
in the war books he reads at night. At the end of the story, he comes to realize
that everything is not like he imagines. He knows now that he cannot always
be the hero he dreams of. He burns all his war books and is forced to grow up
faster than he expected.
This short story really touched me. I felt sad for the boy, that he had
to grow up because of the dramatic situation he had to experience. The one
person he admired the most was growing up, and he was forced to grow up
also. In my opinion, the significance of the burning of the books symbolized
his transitioning from a child to a young adult. I would recommend this short
story to anyone; it is a very moving story and prompts readers to get sentimental thinking about their own life changes. Jose Emilio Pacheco did a great job
portraying the theme of the story to the readers.
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1 STEPHANIE LOPEZ
“CHAC-MOOL” BY CARLOS FUENTES
This is a short story about a woman who is reading a friend’s journal after
he died. Her friend Filiberto drowned in Acapulco. he had lost his job and was
accused of stealing. The narrator doesn’t believe these things about her friend.
As she reads his writings she begins to think her friend was losing it.
In his journal, he speaks of a statue, Chac-Mool, that comes to life after
getting wet during a flood in his cellar. The statue controls him, tells him what
to do, and gets very angry if he doesn’t comply. The statue makes him steal
money from work which eventually costs him his job. He had no way out since
the statue was very observant. He was attempting to escape by swimming away
when he died.
She ultimately doesn’t want to believe her friend is crazy so she makes
excuses, blaming overworking. She arrived at his house and to her surprise, an
Indian, Chac-Mool opens the door. He is very similar to the statue her friend
described in his journal.
I really enjoyed the story. It had a great use of imagination and surrealism.
It really makes you think about who is really crazy. The end has great irony
which I like. I recommend this story it a good read and not too long.
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1 CHRISTELLE DEJOLIE MAKOUTEU
“TELL THEM NOT TO KILL ME” BY JUAN RULFO
Published in 1953, this is one of 20 great Mexican stories in Sun, Stone
and Shadows. The story takes place in Mexico and its theme is related to social realism, an artistic movement which focuses on social and racial injustice
through portrayal of life struggles, most often about the working class.“Tell
Them Not To Kill Me” is about Juvencio, a father who is around 60 years old
and who committed a crime thirty-five or more years ago. He has just been arrested. Juvencio is begging his son Justino to help him. It is Juvencio who says,
“Tell them not to kill me.” But Justino fears that the police would arrest him
too and shoot him. He thinks that if this happened, nobody would take care
of his wife and his children. He finally thinks about what he can do to help
his father. Just reading the title, “Tell Them Not to kill me,” makes the reader
curious to read the story, to know what crime was committed. The message in
this story reveals something about our society.
Juvencio really wants to stay alive; he doesn’t want to die. The first sentence of the story illustrates that: “Tell them not to kill me, Justino! Go on and
tell them that. For God`s sake! Tell them .Tell them please for God’s sake!” By
looking at the repetition of the words ``for God’s sake,” we notice that he has
become religious. Juvencio is so determined to stay alive, he would do anything
for that. When his son tells him that he can’t because there would be nobody to
take care of his wife and his children, Juvencio says, ``Providence will take care
of them, Justino.” He just wants his own situation to be resolved. He doesn’t
care about what would happen or what is happening in the world. As the narrator says, “All he wanted was to live.”
When Juvencio discovers that there is nothing to do to save him, he becomes very afraid. The story describes “his eyes big with fear and his mouth
swelled up with those mouthfuls of sour water he had to swallow unwillingly.”
After a while, when Juvencio knows that there is no more hope for him, the
Sergeant brings him in front of the Colonel who he hasn’t seen before that
moment. But Juvencio hears the Colonel’s voice ask if he “knew Guadalupe
Terreros?” In fact, the Colonel’s father was the one who Juvencio killed 35 years
ago. The Colonel orders the Sergeant to “take [Juvencio] and tie him up awhile,
so he will suffer and then shoot him!” In spite of all Juvencio’s supplications
and confessions, nothing could save him.
I really loved the beginning of the story with the phrase ``Tell them not
to kill me.” The message presents the reality of our society and some of the
problems that we face in our lives. The author presents a social story because
crimes such as violence, murder, or homicide happen most often because of
the economic situation which faces the different classes of society. The theme
of the story and the way the story is written makes it very interesting. I really
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recommend this story to those interested in fiction, Mexican culture and social
criticism.
“Potatoes with Eyes” by Mavel Soto
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1 MICHELLE HENRIQUEZ
“TELL THEM NOT TO KILL ME” BY JUAN RULFO
“Tell the Sergeant to let you see the Colonel. And tell him how old I am,
how little I’m worth. What will he get out of killing me? Nothing. After all, he
must have a soul. Tell him to do it for the blessed salvation of his soul” (127).
Juvencio was a coward. those were the words that he yelled to his son Justino,
to tell the sergeant not to kill him. He should’ve faced his crime instead of
running away from it all these years. Every wrongdoing has to be accounted
for. He lived his life in fear all the time so that he missed out and lost his family.
Did he honestly think that his son was going to risk his own life for a dad who
had barely been there for him? Maybe Justino thought his father had it coming
for doing what he did and he didn’t feel bad that his father was going to die. I
couldn’t believe that after all these years, Don Lupe’s son would even remember
the man – Juvencio – who had killed his father and left him fatherless. Don
Lupe’s son put all his efforts to seeking his revenge on his father’s murderer?
After all, the way Juvencio had killed Don Lupe was heartless and I think he
got what he deserved. Everyone knew that he killed that man, so how didn’t he
expect his day to come? He thought God was going to take it easy on him and
have a peaceful death from old age.
It is unbelievable how considerate the Colonel was to Juvencio by trying
to numb him with liquor so he would not feel the pain of the shots, compared
to the agony his father went through when he was dying slowly for two days. It
was very considerate of Justino, Juvencio’s son whom he had really abandoned,
to take his dead body on a donkey and cover his face so his wife and kids would
not see the horror of all those bullet holes and to have a wake for him. Is a
good short story that shows how karma works. Like the saying goes, “what goes
around comes back around.”
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1 MARBIN PROFETA
“MY LIFE WITH THE WAVE” BY OCTAVIO PAZ
Octavio Paz’s “My Life with the Wave” is an intriguing and unforgettable
love story. Just like every love story, it is filled with passion, laughter, happiness,
sadness, and even anger.
She left everything behind to follow him to the city where he lived. Her
energy filled his house and made everything brighter and happier. Their obsession for one another grows bigger and stronger. At times she wasn’t happy but
he would try everything to make her happy again. At times he felt mortified
by her but the beauty of her voice made him calm and peaceful. They had the
characteristics of a typical couple, but this relationship was far from normal
because the woman in the story is a wave. A wave made out of salty water was
a man’s partner.
As unreal and unbelievable as this story is, I have to say that I liked it. It’s
not the typical love story where the magical prince swept the beautiful girl off
her feet and its ends in a happily ever after. This story gives the same thrill that
any love story gives, but it is meant for those like me who don’t believe in the
happy endings. In real life, relationships end and the person who you thought
was going to be with you until death was never really meant for you. We make
the mistake of believing that there is such thing as happily ever after when
there really isn’t. There are always problems, misunderstandings and pointless
arguments. It’s not about finding the perfect person; it’s really about finding
the right person for you. As surreal as this story seems, it is closer to reality than
many I have read. It takes in the reality of those unfixable relationships that we
all go through where the best solution is to end it.
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1 ASSAYID ROACHE, first Place
Hostos Community College Women’s History Month
Essay Contest
Dear NYC History Council,
Women in the 19th Century were not permitted to be as involved in
society as men. Women were second rate. If a woman back then was knowledgeable, the woman might be scorned by men. Although women were unappreciated, they still managed to overcome stereotypes. Emily Roebling fits that
description. She is both courageous and has overcome stereotypes.
Emily Warren Roebling was born in the town of Brampton, Ontario. She
was born into a large family of many sisters and brothers, but still managed to
get an education. She was funded by her brother Gouverneur K. Warren. Even
though her family wasn’t wealthy, she overcame the obstacle and endured. In
the 19th Century women weren’t really active in the fundamentals of learning,
Emily was courageous when she took the risk and got an education. Emily
married one of the engineers serving her brother. The engineer’s father, John A
Roebling, died of tetanus. His son, Washington Roebling, took over. After his
father’s death Washington took over the Brooklyn Bridge’s construction.
As Washington worked, he soon contracted Caissons Disease. The disease
had a great impact upon Washington. His wife Emily had to step in for him.
Emily’s courageous act has proved that women can take that step to a higher
sense of reality. It took heart for her to approach the construction team, reason
with them and let them know that this is how they’re going to cooperate and
finish the great task.
During the project, Emily achieved many things. Emily Roebling dedicated fourteen years of her life towards building the Brooklyn Bridge. With
much interest she acquired a great deal of knowledge about this project such
as “strength of materials, stress analysis, cable construction, and calculating
caternary curves through Washington’s teachings.” (Wikipedia). When her
husband’s position was jeopardized, she stepped in to speak for him at the
American Society of Civil Engineers. She became the first woman to speak
to this society. This was an honor for her. She was the first woman to receive
recognition for doing something rather than household cleaning. When the
Brooklyn Bridge was completed, they honored Emily Roebling at the opening
ceremony by Abram Stevens Hewitt who said that the Brooklyn Bridge was
“an everlasting monument to the sacrificing devotion of woman and of her
capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long disbarred”
(Wikipedia) After the Brooklyn Bridge she moved to Trenton, New Jersey. She
joined organizations like the Relief Society during the Spanish American War.
She was also enrolled in New York University where she obtained a degree in
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law. This was a great honor. She stepped beyond the bounds of women and
showed great promise.
“My Life with the Wave” by Jose Martinez
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1 IN SEON KIM, second Place
Essay Contest
Dear NYC History Council:
Recently, I have heard that to celebrate women’s history month this year,
the NYC History Council wants to recognize one inspirational woman who, in
the 19th century, showed extraordinary courage in overcoming hardship as she
pursued her specific talent, finally achieving recognition for her path-breaking
work. Here are some reasons why I am in support of Emily Roebling, chief
engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge.
First, she did an enormous job in completing the Brooklyn Bridge as chief
engineer. The bridge is a 15,000-ton, 6,000-foot bridge across the East River,
connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan, and to be sure, for the past 125 years,
engineers and builders have marveled and admired it. Her job was definitely
hard because women’s roles were not emphasized in the 19th century. Due
to her husband’s disease and her father-in-law’s death, she came to have the
responsibility to build the bridge, however she completed her huge work. The
bridge still remains as one of the most famous pieces of architecture in NYC.
Second, she did her best in learning. She attended school at St. Leonard School in Brampton and went to Europe to study the use of caissons for
bridges with her husband, even though it was not easy for a woman to study
in the 1860’s. After completion of the bridge, she also continued her education
and received a law degree from NYU.
Third, she was faithful to her role for working people and her husband. As
a woman engineer, it was not easy to communicate with many working people
and laborers. Nevertheless, she did a great job in her role, and she completed
the bridge. As a wife and coworker of her husband, she was a messenger and
spokesperson for him. She grasped his ideas and learned to speak the language
of the engineers. She made daily visits to the bridge to inspect the work and to
carry his instructions to the staff.
In conclusion, Emily Roebling inspired other women to have the courage
to enter into traditionally male-dominated careers, and her achievement was
extraordinary. Thank you for reviewing my letter, and I hope you choose her
for the woman of this year.
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1 MELBANYS REYES, third Place
Essay Contest
Dear Council,
I have read that you want to celebrate Women’s History Month this year,
and that you want to recognize one inspirational woman who lived in the
19th century that had the courage to overcome hardships for her path-breaking
work. Also that you have two women that have been recognized for their creative works: Edmonia Lewis and Emily Roebling. In my opinion I realize that
Edmonia Lewis represents a woman who was courageous in confronting and
overcoming obstacles for the following reasons.
Edmonia Lewis was a very important woman who dedicated her life to
making her dreams come true and became an important woman in society.
Lewis was the first African-American and Native American woman recognized
as an important sculptor. She found her inspiration in the lives of abolitionists
and Civil War heroes and celebrated her racial identity. Lewis also went to one
of the best colleges, Oberlin College. It was the first college to admit women
and African-Americans. In that college she discovered her talent for drawing.
Lewis overcame her obstacles no matter what happened in her life. In a
world that didn’t encourage women of color, her achievement was shocking
and at the same time mortified those people who said that Negroes don’t have
the capacity for intelligence and also felt that her art was particularly bad because she insisted on showing the truth.
Lewis combined a unique blend of talent, emotion and perspective and
was inspired by those people who were heroes to her - leaders in the Abolitionist movement and such courageous women as Cleopatra and Hagar, maid to
Abraham’s wife, Sara. In 1863 she moved to Boston and studied with a famous
neoclassical sculptor named Edward Brackett. Lewis’ first work was very important and honored Abolitionists and heroes of the Civil War.
Lewis’ works were sold for very large sums of money. Also she won high
commissions and her studio was a fashionable place for tourists to visit. The
“Death of Cleopatra” is 1876 was a very famous sculpture presented as such
places as the Philadelphia Centennial and later in Chicago. The last important
details they published of Edmonia Lewis is that she was living in Rome in
1911, but they don’t have information about where or when they died. But
she will always become part of history because she was an example of a black
woman that created a place for her sculptures and herself in the world.
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1 ADRIAN MORILLO
THE MARKETING OF FOOD IN AMERICA
Throughout history, the United States of America has stood out and tried
to be the best at everything. From jobs to sports, America has progressed far
more than any other country. With all the success, you would think that America’s food production would be one of the healthiest when it comes to food
quality.
On January 28, 2007, The New York Times published “Unhappy Meals,”
an article by Michael Pollan. This article explains why and how America has
taken a bad turn on food production. According to Pollan, Americans went
from eating healthy, natural foods, to eating processed foods. Pollan argues that
Americans have been taught bad eating habits and goes on to list ways of improving them. He also discusses what “nutritionism” is, its effect on American
food production and how it came to be.
Within the sixteen pages of arguments and support, Michael Pollan’s
main argument above all is that Americans don’t eat enough plants. He states
that for Americans “it might be wise to eat more plants and less meat” (Pollan
8). One problem with this is that America has the biggest fast food distribution, satisfying most people who like good tasting yet fast delivered food.
Although the speed of good tasting food is convenient and satisfying at the
time, it is dangerous for the human system. Pollan goes on to say that what
Americans have yet to realize is that the human body requires natural foods
such as fruits and vegetables and not processed foods. The reason is that processed foods have little nutrition. When food is heavily processed it loses some
of its natural nutrients during the transition to better taste and longer shelf
life, such as milk. This is why Pollan claims that Americans should eat what
Americans ate two or three generations ago, “Don’t eat anything your greatgreat-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food” (Pollan 14).
Now, the processed food idea is related to what Pollan described as “nutritionism.” In nutritionism “the key to understanding food is indeed the nutrient.” In other words, nutritionism is the value of the nutrition that makes the
food rather than the food having any value aside from nutritional value. This
complex idea motivates Americans to modify food by adding and removing
nutrients to foods such as sugary cereals. This also includes the other foods that
I specifically mentioned before within the fast food industry. Pollan explains
how many scientists were giving bad health advice which came as a result of
bad studies due to bad data. Pollan concludes his nutritionism and science
themes by stating that we can’t get health advice from science but rather from
our culture.
Science is very sketchy on food experiments but helpful at the same time.
On the other hand, biology helps us identify which plants are healthy and ed-
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ible. If it weren’t for that research we wouldn’t have known which plants were
safe to eat, we’d be trying to eat dangerous plants and putting human life at
risk.
In summation, Michael Pollan’s article opened my eyes and revealed the
truth about our foods. For Pollan to come out with the truth about how food
has taken a turn for the worse is knowledge that readers must spread. His overall main point is short and clear and that is “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly
plants” (Pollan 1).
“Tires” by Kenny Baez
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1 QUDUS LAWAL
ABOLISHING NUTRITIONISM
According to Michael Pollan, American food has been westernized
through the introduction of science into the nutritional system. This has resulted in dangerous health predicaments and a devastating decrease in the life
expectancy of the American population. The detachment of nutrients from
food – an intricate chemical combination that is yet to be solved – has gradually diverted the attention of western eaters from food as a relationship that keeps
the ecosystem running, to chemical substances required to make us healthy
and keep us alive.
This detachment has made western eaters fall into an abyss of diet difficulties. According to Pollan, this detachment is known as nutritionism. “As
the ‘ism’ suggests, it is not a scientific subject, but an ideology. Ideologies are
ways of organizing large swaths of life and experiences under a set of shared
but unexamined assumptions (Pollan).” This light shown upon the science of
nutrition has created a cloud of confounding facts that have left American eaters to the mercy of published science discoveries and the vicious monopoly of
the food industry.
The stark message that eating less fats than carbs, is healthy has turned
out to be wrong; the claimed, ‘healthy seeds and grains’ have only increased
the level of obesity since 1981 among Americans. Cancerous processed foods
and the insatiable human gluttony are a few of the numerous ways in which
American eating has taken a step down the steep hill of nutritional imbalance.
It isl therefore not erroneous to say, as Michael Pollan claims, that the American eating problem is caused by various events, but the aspect that takes most
blame is “Bad Science.” This is ironic because new scientific discoveries have
overall made the world a better place. However, science is at its best when it is
factually and fundamentally buttressed.
In this comprehensive article, Pollan makes it clear that most of the socalled ‘scientific researchers’ are driven to find answers to the problems of nutrition but research results effects are vague and completely equivocal. He cites
an example of research done by the Woman’s Health initiative. This was a long
term clinical trial intended to find out if low fat diets can cut health risks in
women and it generated ambiguous and unreliable data that in turn yielded results that were completely, indisputably wrong. This bothers me as a reader and
as a consumer, and makes my firm and rigid believe in any scientific research
shaky and unstable. Does science really deal with facts? Of course! Even if the
facts have been produced by a corrupted source.
With what I have read, I do not only think nutritionism is a problem, I
believe strongly that it should be abolished from our nutritional system, as long
as its cancerous seeds militate against the health of the nation. As long as food
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shall remain, the complete content of it may never be known. For example, it
is amazing to find that even the herb called “thyme” has a lot of chemicals and
anti-oxidents added to it. It is not wrong to discover nutrients in food, but it is
completely wrong to assume that this nutrient is the major nutrient when there
are possibly thousands yet to be discovered in the same food product. However,
it is even more erroneous to extract a nutrient from its original natural home
and infuse it into an environment that is totally unfamiliar
However, like Pollan acknowledges, this is not the end of the road for
‘food’ consumption. Eating quality not quantity, going back to the days of our
fore-parents, cooking our own food, planting a garden, not going for processed
foods and lots more were the straight forward solution given by Michael Pollan. However, I believe that even more can be done. Since this nutritional
roller-coaster was initiated by political means, the best way to tackle a problem is by going to the source. If what I am insinuating is understood, I think
government should pass laws that will curb all nutritionist ideologies that are
currently threatening, not only our nutritional future, but also our ability to
produce inner digestive mutation, as the digestive lining tries to adapt to the
unfriendly guest, ‘nutrients’, not food.
Conclusively and critically, I do not agree with Pollan’s conclusion that
food isn’t a fuel. Based on the Merriam Webster dictionary food is a material used to produce heat or power by burning; nutritive material. Based on
biological concepts, cellular respiration causes combustion (gives up heat) of
glucose (from food) in oxygen to produce energy in form of ATP (Adenosine
triphosphate). Also it is apparent that food possesses some nutritive value that
can never be collectively viewed by scientists due to the need to use individual
variables that will not confound with others. I will say let foods be what they
are and nutrients be what they are because the two in a nutritional system can
never co-exist without impending atrocities and incredible side effects.
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1 REINALDO VELEZ
HOW WATER CAME TO BE
Below is a piece that was written for a Writing Intensive section of Chemistry
210. Prof. Nelson Nuñez Rodriguez notes that the most “commonly-needed skill
employers cite in the post-downturn, globalized 21st-century universe is the ability
to effectively communicate orally and in writing.” Prof. Nuñez Rodriguez’ students
research and write about a topic they are studying and can prepare it, as Mr. Reinaldo Velez has done, as both a written and oral presentation. He revised the assignment to work as a monologue which he delivered in his Acting II class.
You know I love you, right? Look, I know I said that we would be together
forever, but the reality is, we can’t. Why? Because I need to burn you off so that
we can create energy. I wish things were different, but unfortunately they’re
not. Of course I’m not making this up. Does this look like the face of a liar?
Obviously not, I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t a matter of life or death;
Baby please doesn’t cry; No no, it’s not you, it’s me. What? You are smart,
beautiful and you’ve got a great sense of humor. And besides, you’re the most
abundant element in this universe, I’m sure you’ll find somebody better. You
got that carbon guy that keeps looking at you, but if he’s not your type. I’ve
seen that chlorine guy over by the stomach area, and I heard he has a lot of isotopes! I mean, who knows? Maybe you guys would hit it off or something. I’m
just feeling kind of trapped. I need some space. The only way we could be together is if you were to bring one of your sisters; den we could all react together
and make pure, sensual water! Doesn’t that sound better than me burning you?
I know it’s your sister, but she has been looking for somebody to hold on to.
Don’t you want to help her out? Water is vital to life you know. You don’t want
to be the last hydrogen molecule left and be blamed for the extinction of all life
forms do you? I think you know what you have to do.
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1 PROFESSOR OLGA STEINBERG
INTRODUCTION TO THE ENERGY SAVING PROJECT
Have you been affected by unseasonable weather lately? Have you seen the
reports of melting ice caps, devastating droughts and killer hurricanes? Those
are the signs that global climate change is now a reality that impacts us all.
Causes of global climate change are still subject to much discussion. While the
majority of scientists know that Global Climate Change is mainly the result
of human activities, many politicians still argue that Global Climate Change
is mainly a natural phenomenon. Nevertheless, while disagreeing on the magnitude of effects that human activities have on climate change, both scientists
and politicians agree that humans’ activities are a contributing factor.
One of the human activities adversely affecting our global climate is our
ever-increasing energy consumption. Decreasing energy consumption will correspondingly decrease the impact of human activities on climate. While it is
impossible to imagine our lives without hundreds of helpful electrical-operated devices, a good portion of the electricity we consume is not used for any
helpful purposes, but is, in fact, wasted. Decreasing energy consumption by
decreasing energy waste is a good and painless first step in mitigating Global
Climate Change.
Ms. Felton and Mr. Piquant decided to do just that: decrease energy waste
in their households and thus help mitigate global climate change. It was not
easy, and they met with resistance from their own family members, but they
were determined. You will find their accounts for energy conservation below,
and perhaps, inspired by their example, you will decide to follow in their footsteps.
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1 JEAN ANDRE PIQUANT
My household is composed of a family of five: my wife and I, and three
daughters, thirteen, eleven, and two. Since we moved to our new apartment,
a large, comfortable two bedrooms, our consumption of gas and electricity
have skyrocketed to a couple of hundred dollars per month. For some reason that only Con Edison can explain, I am being billed every two months.
Furthermore, the gas and electric are combined in one bill, but with separate
statements, and I never bother calling to ask why. But one thing is certain:
whenever a light is on and not needed, I am the first one to turn it off and this
is something I learned growing-up in my native country. To be honest, I did
not learn it from a perspective of saving energy. It was more about “not wasting
money,” which amounts to the same thing, really. Saving money equals saving
energy, and saving energy equals saving money. Isn’t that strange, how a third
world country, without knowing it, was ahead of the industrialized world when
it comes to energy saving?
For this project, my goal remains the same, but with a broader insight: less
energy consumption for the purpose of helping the environment. With one
big refrigerator, three television sets, two desktop computers, two laptop computers, not to mention 75 watt light bulbs in each room, plus one all-in-one
office-jet machine, and four cell phones that have to be recharged every night,
something had to be done, and fast.
The first step was a no brainer. It was to get rid of those energy guzzling
light bulbs and replacing them with energy-efficient ones. Second, if the computers are not needed, they should not be turned on. Third, I lowered the thermostat in the refrigerator from eight to five. Fourth, the televisions should not
be turned on unnecessarily and turned off promptly at bedtime. Now, dealing
with preteens everything has to be repeated constantly, I established one drastic
rule of “three strikes and you are out.” It’s very simple. If I tell anyone to turn
off a light three times, the fourth time, I unscrew it and lock it in my closet
until I get the desired understanding, or until my wife starts talking too much
in favor of the kids, or whichever comes first.
My last energy bill, gas and electric combined, was in February and it
came out to $240.96. The next one should be coming very soon and already I
can start smiling because I can definitely smell the savings.
Since greenhouse gases are bad for the environment and results from high
energy consumption, the most effective way to reduce such damage is for everyone to get involved and help in many small ways, for example, by reducing their consumption of energy in their homes and at work. I know that by
myself, I may not be saving the world, but if everyone on this planet decides to
do their part; I believe the world would be smiling with us, for we would give
it its favorite color: green.
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1 TAWANA FELTON
I have chosen to participate in a conserving energy experiment. I have
always been a believer in preserving the Earth and environment. Although I
conserve energy in my home, I have opted to use my brother’s home as my
guinea pig. I chose his home because I already know the importance of protecting our environment, and he does not have a clue about going Green. I
decided to educate him and save him some money in the process. Hopefully
his savings will inspire him to do more to help the Earth that helps us, and to
continue to conserve energy. Globally, we produce over 20,000 lbs of carbon
dioxide emissions and waste billions of dollars worth energy every year. There
are ways to cut energy costs in half and save money while helping to save the
Earth. These include switching old bulbs for new compact fluorescent bulbs,
unplugging electronics and appliances when not in use, walk or bike instead of
driving, using low flow shower heads, and lowering all thermostats. Utilizing
these methods will add to saving our earth and saving money.
My brother Peter lives in a two bedroom apartment with his wife and
daughter. The age groups of the adults are 26-65 and his daughter is a teenager. In his home he has three television sets, four game systems, two desktop
computers, humidifiers, and a host of appliances which are plugged in and
running all the time. He also drives his car everywhere he goes, including
the corner store. Also Peter is afraid of the dark, so he leaves his lights on all
night. Peter is being billed every two months and it is an estimated bill. This is
a system Con Edison currently uses to determine your usage. Prior to starting
this experiment his Con Edison bill was extremely high, sometimes surpassing
three hundred dollars. I explained to my brother that it is important to use
your energy efficiently because it pollutes the air and adds to global warming.
It is also costly and if he wanted to save a little money, all he had to do was a
few simple things around the house to achieve this goal. After which he was
gung-ho about the idea, not to mention the savings.
Additionally, I explained the steps I wanted him to follow to get the maximum benefits from this experiment. He should unplug all appliances, televisions, game systems, and computers when not in use; turn off all lights unless
someone is in that room; use energy saver nightlights for his fear of the dark;
change his shower head to a low flow shower head; turn his refrigerator down
from nine to four. He should also walk or bike to places in the vicinity, lower
his household thermostat to sixty eight degrees in the winter during the day
and fifty five at night, and change his 100 watt bulbs for the 10 watt energy
saver bulbs.
We both went to the hardware store to purchase three energy saver night
lights at $3.49 apiece and four energy saver bulbs at $5.99 a piece and a shower
head for $14.99. We also purchased a surge protector strip for 4.99, so he
could plug in what he needed and not occupy all of the outlets. We immediately began the process of conserving energy. At first I made surprise visits to make
sure he was doing what I asked, and he was only doing half of the steps. Once
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again I told him how pertinent the information I had given him was to benefit
from this experiment and he started completing all of the steps. I turned his
thermostats to the appropriate temperatures and installed his shower head just
to make sure everything would be done. I plugged one game, one TV, his
humidifier and one computer into his surge protector strip and asked him to
leave it this way for at least one month. I also instructed him to unplug one
device before plugging in another if he needed to use additional appliances.
This change was extremely hard for him and his family to do because they are
used to running every appliance at all times, but they were willing.
Peter and his family received their bill for the month of April and they
were a little happy with their savings. Although it wasn’t much, they managed
to save a couple of dollars from changing some of the bad habits of wasting energy. They have vowed to continue to help save the earth by conserving energy
and hope in the future they could play a bigger part in this endeavor. Now that
he has a little knowledge on the subject he will also educate others with this
information in hopes to get more people to conserve energy.
When people save energy, they not only save money, they also reduce the
demand for fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. “If we burn less fuels we lower the emission of carbon dioxide which is the primary contributor to global
warming. This was an experiment that took some getting used to in the beginning but all parties benefit from it. Conserving energy saves money, time, and
more importantly the Earth” (Ecomall 1). Changing the small things around
the house and in your activities of daily living can prove beneficial to you and
the earth. I feel by conserving energy we are contributing to saving the world
and money. I will continue this regimen and so will my brother. I love the fact
that by helping the Earth one could save money; whether a dime or dollar, it is
worth it. We have to occupy this earth so let’s keep it healthy and clean for our
children. Remember: the color Green is no longer associated with the negative
word envy. It now stands positively for protecting our Earth.
Works Cited
Ecomall: A Place to help save the Earth. (1994-2010). Power Scorecard
Ecomall.com. Web. 5 May 2010.
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1 GEORGE MIREKU
LET PLANET EARTH CONTINUE TO SHINE HER SMILING FACE
UPON US AND THE FUTURE GENERATIONS
This year marks the fifteenth year that Hostos Community College has
been celebrating Earth Day. The event is organized by the Department of Natural Sciences and it always creates awareness among the student body, faculty
and the community as a whole on the need to exercise the necessary measures
to protect our Mother Earth on whose bosom we all reside. This year, the
college is fortunate to have distinguished professors Steinberg and Sohel of
Natural Sciences spearhead the event.
The theme for this year’s Earth Day is “ Home Sweet Home.” It was selected purposely to inculcate the need to exercise a sense of responsibility to
protect the planet within the student fabric and the community at large. Several activities have been put in place to commemorate the occasion; they include
exhibits, movies, shows and speeches by faculty members.
With regard to the exhibits, several posters created by students were mounted to depict factors contributing to global warming. One of them, Greenhouse
Effects, highlights the emissions of gases produced as a result of burning fossil
fuels such as coal, oil and gasoline, are used to power automobiles, factories and
our homes. Others include Effect of Lead Poison, focused on the environment
as well as on human beings. The poster on Lead Poisoning by Crisne Lebron
and Hector R. Dominguez , students of Chemistry 220, tracks the effects of
lead poisoning on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems as a result of lead released
in the exhaust of automobiles which tend to pollute the air. The poster also
highlights lead dust particles released from working facilities which get into
the atmosphere increasing air pollution. The effects of lead also reaches the soil
level as a result of lead paint that breaks down, and the improper disposal of
other materials that contain lead. In addition, the improper disposal of factory
wastes contributes to higher levels of lead in aquatic environments. Eventually,
this toxic heavy metal ends in human tissues through inhalation and ingestion
of lead-infected products. Greenhouse gases, if not minimized, will continue
to form pockets of blankets around the earth, trapping heat and raising global
temperatures which will pose serious health issues like asthma and skin cancer.
Global warming can also lead to extreme weather conditions such as severe and
numerous hurricanes and heat waves, flooding and coastal erosion.
Another interesting poster was on Recycling. This poster emphasized the
need to recycle to promote a healthy and well-balanced ecosystem, to reduce
pollution, to save our natural resources, to reduce energy consumption, and
finally, to save money. Part of these benchmarks can be achieved by resorting
to electronic mail or electronic data instead of hard copies, the proper disposal
of trash and many other greenhouse related products; and changes in life style
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practices such as walking and bike riding instead of driving. Unfortunately,
the poster’s creator did not provide his or her name. However the website was
provided, HYPERLINK “http://www.epa.gov/waste/conserve/rrr/index.htm”
\t “_blank” www.epa.gov/waste/conserve/rrr/index.htm. I do believe this site
gives an in-depth view of all the answer associated with recycling, thus encouraging the world at large to recycle and dispose of waste products in a better
manner.
The posters mentioned above deserve recognition for the strenuous efforts
that the participants made to come up with such outstanding ideas. I will draw
the curtain by first expressing my sincere gratitude to all the participants and
organizers for putting these wonderful and educational ideas together, and for
ensuring that events like this are open to the college community. The event
strived to meet its goal, which is to save the planet Earth from the activities
of mankind. I suggest that CUNY incorporate future celebrations into their
academic calendar so that on this day, every student be mandated to search for
ways to “fight” a battle for our planet Earth. Every student can fully participate and understand the seriousness of this problem. Finally I will conclude
by saying there is no better place than home, and since our home is here on
this planet Earth, let us all rise and strive to make the Earth a better place for
ourselves and for future generations.
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1 NADIA RAMANIUK
THE COPENHAGEN CLIMATE TREATY
Society has used its natural environment as a bottomless resource. For
many years, the consequences of this exploitation did not show drastic effects
on our biosphere. Only at the end of the last century did changes in the biosphere attract the concerned attention of the scientists. During the earlier half
of the 20th century, the environmental changes were growing and now these
changes and their environmental effects have crashed on civilization, becoming
one of our main concerns. (3) Our constant desire to improve the quality of life
drives societies to produce more and more products and utilize more resources
without thinking of the consequences those actions cause. With this kind of
an approach, the greater part of our consumed resources comes back to the environment in the form of waste, often poisonous, harmful or unfit for further
utilization of any kind. This type of resource usage possesses a major threat not
only to our environment and biosphere but also to the human existence itself.
So what is global warming? Billions of tons of carbon dioxide gas go up
into the atmosphere as a result of burning coal and oil, natural gas and firewood. Millions of tons of methane rise up into the atmosphere from development of gas. Humans are polluting the atmosphere much faster then our environment can absorb it all. “Industrialization, deforestation and pollution of the
atmosphere with greenhouse gases are the main causes of global warming”(8).
All these gases released into the atmosphere, trap the heat from the earth and
are not letting it escape into outer space. (11).
Today, the problem of the ozone layer concerns many. Unfortunately,
people’s fears about an ozone cloud are not unwarranted. Destruction of an
ozone cloud results due to various chemical substances such as freons, used in
the refrigerating industry and in aerosols. Nitrogen oxides which are formed at
nuclear explosions and in combustion chambers of jet planes and rockets are
yet another reason for ozone layer destruction. And the last is especially harmful, as at greater heights nitrogen oxides live very long. And don’t discount the
application of mineral fertilizers and smoke gases from power stations. Thus,
the greatest influence on an ozone cloud of our planet Earth is connected with
economic activities of mankind. We must move fast to change this situation;
we cannot wait (10, 11).
In 1997, the rich industrialized nations met at Kyoto and agreed on targets for reducing emissions of green house gases, in accordance to a specified
timetable. The Kyoto agreement put no obligations on the developing world
and was not ratified by the United States Senate. Therefore, as a result of that,
the United States has not been a party to the treaty. The Copenhagen Summit is an attempt to resolve the issues of Kyoto in order to implement a more
complete and effective international treaty. (1, 5)
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The main issues addressed at the Summit were to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions in order to keep the warming under 2 degrees Celsius, carbon trading, as well as deforestation. However, one of the most vital issues was the
“burden-sharing”. How will the financial and environmental burden will be
distributed between all of the “players?” What is the bottom line? All countries
are convinced that as a whole we must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
However, the industrialized countries such as the UK, US, Japan and even China and India are responsible for the majority of the emissions. Thus, shouldn’t
the biggest players who pollute the environment the most be responsible for
the major part of restoration of the damage done (2, 4)?
On one side of the negotiations is the industrialized world, including
Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia and Canada. With the exception
of the United States, these nations are bound by the Kyoto Protocol. These
countries are the largest emitters of green house gases, and acknowledge the
extra responsibility. Through the Copenhagen treaty, these developed nations
are hoping to either extend the Kyoto Protocol to include the United States or
to fully depart from the Kyoto structure. However, the United States is stern
on their position of not joining the Kyoto, because it puts no responsibility on China and other industrializing nations. “Instead of jointly negotiating
emissions-reduction targets and timetables for achieving them, the U.S. suggests that each nation brings to the table a pledge of what it intends to do to
address climate change” (1, 5).
On the other side of the bargaining table are the G77 and China. This
group of about 130 developing nations has no obligations under the Kyoto
Protocol and intends to fight hard to keep their responsibility-free conditions.
However, the industrializing and developing nations such as China, India, Brazil and Mexico are under a lot of pressure to make a commitment towards
climate control and share the global responsibility to reduce emissions. Since
the atmosphere pollution and green house gas emissions are significantly lower
in these nations than in the rest of the industrialized world, they believe that
they should have minimal responsibility in taking measures to prevent climate
change (9). However, there is a difference between the developing nations such
as China, India, and Mexico, versus the other more stagnant and non-industrialized parts of the world. These rapidly developing nations are being expected
to commit to some international collaborative actions, while the others are
in need of not only relief of responsibility, but additional aid to help develop
clean energy sources and ways to deal with the effects of climate change (6,
5). Even though not all countries are satisfied with each element of the “agreement’” this summit was a giant step forward towards the new climate treaty
(7). This is a complex subject with an extensive list of unresolved issues. These
nations need not only to agree on the framework of the agreement, but also on
the measurements of success.
Contamination of the environment is a problem for the entire world. The
blossoming of industry has brought material benefits and riches to society but
for a high: the destruction of the world’s biosphere. We have to understand that
all of us are interdependent, thus the threat towards any part of our biosphere
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poses a threat not only to plants and animals, ocean levels and ozone layer but
also to all of us humans. With this in mind, we as a nation should not only
hold ourselves to the highest standards when comes to the preservation of our
resources and atmosphere, but also help the entire world work together in
reaching our common goal, especially help the developing countries realize
that they also play a role in the preserving this planet for our future generations.
In conclusion, the Copenhagen Climate Council was a result of partnership not only between the political leaders of the world, but also incorporating
scientists and international business professionals. The knowledge of biology,
along with the other physical and biological sciences, allows me to view the
broad issue of climate change not only from a socio-economic perspective, but
through the eyes of a young scientist. This debate is not only about how much
money the environmental measures will cost the economies of the world, but
also for our societies to realize the vital necessity of these changes in preserving
our planet.
“Untitled” by Christine Cortez
JUNE 2010
¡ESCRIBA!
77
1 RUDOLF AYMAR MBADINGA
MY EXPERIENCE AT THE 2010 MODEL SENATE IN ALBANY
On April 17 and 18, I had the opportunity to be part of an exceptional
group of young men and women from throughout the CUNY and SUNY College system to embark in an adventure: The 2010 Model New York State Senate
Project in conjunction with the Annual Somos El Futuro Conference. It was a
unique leadership development opportunity. As an International student, from
Gabon, alongside five other students from Hostos Community College, it was
a great way of learning and for unforgettable memories as a student.
During the weekend, we all gathered at the CUNY Graduate center for
the trip to Albany to sit as Senators in the New York Senate chamber. Prior to
leaving for Albany, we had taken three intensive seminars that prepared us for
the moment that we had to spend in the Senate Chamber.
As soon as we set foot in Albany, we were treated to a CUNY Luncheon
where all the activities began. Later on we went to the mock State Senate session to argue our points and back them up with facts. It took about three
hours, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. During the session, we voted on a specific law
called MS14. It is about term limits for elected officials and particularly the
members of the Legislature. Each and every one of us had the opportunity to
state his point of view and later on voted either for the bill or against the bill.
At the end of the procedure, the Republicans defeated the bill, 31 votes to 29
Democratic votes. Later, we were invited to the Somos El Futuro Dinner Gala
where we had an exceptional time.
It was an amazing experience for us all. As Hostos Community College
student participants, we had the chance to demonstrate how much we have
been learning over the past months and years of workshops and seminars at the
College, as members of the Hostos Leadership Academy. But also as students
from different horizons we learned about politics in the U.S. and particularly
in the State of New York .It was certainly a great learning experience and an
enriching moments for me as a future leader.
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Model Senate Group (above). Model UN Group (below).
JUNE 2010
¡ESCRIBA!
79
1 RUDOLF AYMAR MGADINGA
MY EXPERIENCE AS A PARTICIPANT IN THE NATIONAL MODEL
UNITED NATIONS
During the course of the Spring break, alongside 13 fellow Hostos students, I had the privilege and the opportunity to be part of a program called
the National Model United Nations 2010. It was held at the Sheraton Hotel
in New York City.
Between the opening ceremony on March 21, through the closing ceremony on March 25, we had the opportunity to represent the Dominican
Republic and Hostos Community College at the conference. During that
conference we exchanged, engaged in and shared knowledge, experience and
developed better networking skills than we had previously learned during the
sessions of workshops that we took as members of the Hostos Leadership Academy and students at Hostos community College.
The thrill of mixing with students, young men and women, advisors and
coordinators representing about 165 countries, and from about 200 colleges
throughout the whole world, was just amazing. It was certainly the first handson experience for me on United Nations rules and procedures and how things
actually do work there. How does a proposition become a resolution? What
does it mean to become a signer or to endorse a project or resolution of a
problem in some part of the world? What does it mean to caucus at the United
Nations?
For most of us, it was such an important gathering of intelligence. But
mostly it was the experiment that will make the difference in the years to come
for any Hostos Community College students, especially those who would like
to engage in conflict resolution, peace-making, humanitarianism and jobs
available at this huge representative institution, the United Nations. We were
the first of our generation, but certainly not the last, to set foot in the United
Nations and represent not only the country we were assigned--the Dominican
Republic - but also Hostos Community College.
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1 HOSTOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE ¡ESCRIBA! ¡WRITE!
¡ESCRIBA! ¡WRITE!
VOLUME 8, JUNE 2010
VOLUME 8, JUNE 2010

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